Maitland will be meeting Leon Davis, Rio Tinto's Chief Executive, in London on 6 October. Maitland is also scheduled to meet with British union leaders and with British community groups campaigning against various of Rio Tinto's worldwide activities. We will always bargain over working conditions and wages, but we will never give up our right to bargain collectively. The dispute escalated across the Hunter Valley region yesterday after the company issued writs to a number of union representatives. A strike by 8,000 mineworkers was called off only after the direct intervention of Bob Carr, the Premier of New South Wales, who demanded a compromise by the parties to the dispute.
Pickets halt a coal train trying to load at Hunter Valley.
Union leaders there have given notice of industrial action if there is no headway on hiring additional workers, cutting basic weekly working hours to 35 and introducing better leave provisions. Workers there struck this summer when the company tried to force through seven-day working without consultation. Somincor subsequently agreed to negotiate.