Deputies and Staff at Whitehaven Coal’s Narrabri Coal Mine have presented management with a petition demanding that Whitehaven stop their proposed move to strip workers of hundreds of hours of leave entitlements.
The petition was given to management by the union representing the deputies and staff, the Collieries’ Staff and Officials Association (CSOA).
Whitehaven Coal had advised that it had been incorrectly calculating employee annual and personal leave entitlements for many supervisory employees and that it had been undertaking an audit of leave entitlements for all salaried employees.
According to the association, the result of that audit is that Whitehaven is attempting to strip many supervisors of hundreds of hours of annual and personal leave, which they relied upon when scheduling holidays, family planning and retirement.
Robert Coluccio, CSOA director, said the petition revealed the widespread concerns and frustrations held by members at the site.
“This is not a trivial mistake. Whitehaven is taking hundreds of hours of leave from some of our members,” he said.
“Whilst our members at Narrabri are leading the charge to secure their leave entitlements, this audit has the potential to strip leave from staff and supervisors across Whitehaven’s operations.
“This has very significant real-world effects. We have members who are cancelling long-planned family holidays. Some had factored their leave balances into their retirement plans and will now have to work for longer just to be financially secure.”
One supervisor will lose several hundred hours of annual leave under Whitehaven’s proposal. He had been relying on that balance when planning his retirement, but now thinks he will have to keep working.
Mr Coluccio said that it was particularly insidious that the stripping of leave would result in some members having a negative annual leave balance.
“Some supervisors will have negative annual leave balances where they will need to work for several years just to get back to even and be able to take paid time off work again.”
The association said another employee at Narrabri has been told that he will have a negative annual leave balance of more than several hundred hours following the leave deductions. He will need to work for just over three years before he begins to accrue positive annual leave and can take paid time off work.
An employee who wished to remain anonymous said: “We had been looking forward to a big overseas holiday as a family, but those plans have been torn to shreds.”
Mr Coluccio said that members were alarmed at the safety hazards caused by this approach to leave management.
“Deputies, staff and supervisors perform critical statutory functions to maintain the safety of coal mining operations. If they can’t take time off work for three years, the fatigue management and psychosocial risks that cause are simply unacceptable.
“Whitehaven employs supervisors to keep all workers at Narrabri safe. Whitehaven should not endanger the safety of those supervisors by stripping their entitlements due to their own mistake.”
Another CSOA member at Narrabri, who will also lose several hundred hours of annual leave, said he is particularly disappointed that management has sought to punish workers for its own mistake.
“Whitehaven has told us those are our leave balances for years, and we have relied upon them for years. We had no reason to question our balances, and we used those balances when planning our lives.
“We are all members of our local community. Taking away that leave doesn’t just impact us workers, but it impacts our families and our whole communities. For Whitehaven to take these entitlements from us through no fault of our own has hit all of us hard.”
Mr Coluccio said that CSOA members are calling upon Whitehaven to draw a line in the sand and not apply any retrospective changes.
“This is Whitehaven’s mistake, which their supervisors have relied upon. They should fix it moving forward, but when it is your mistake and it will disadvantage the employees who believed your systems, CSOA members should not be the ones who suffer.
“CSOA members call upon Whitehaven to stop trying to take away our members’ leave.”
A Whitehaven spokesperson said the company is undertaking a review of leave accrual processes after identifying discrepancies in the way leave entitlements have been calculated for some salaried employees.
“We want to be clear: no employee will be required to give up leave they are entitled to,” the spokesperson said.
“In most cases, employees have accessed the correct leave entitlements and there is no issue. In some cases, employees have accessed more leave than they are entitled to. Where these errors are identified, we are working through a process to ensure leave balances are corrected to reflect employees’ actual entitlements.
“We are engaging directly with affected employees throughout this process and remain committed to resolving any discrepancies fairly and transparently.”
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