Industrial relations as power, place and time: the case of Queensland coal mining

Abstract

How has the coal mining industry been changing as employers and unions organise their power resources to control and remake spaces of working and living? The most obvious likely changes are those driven by climate change policies. These are, however, only the most obvious, albeit fundamental, transformations facing coal mining workforces and unions. In the massive export coalfields of the State of Queensland, which have been central to the Australian politics of climate change, a less discussed phenomenon has been unfolding, a remaking of place and power in industrial relations. Employer-driven changes, namely automation, the geography of work and bargaining processes, and workforce composition, have presented themselves as the immediate threats to local traditions of work and social practice, not climate policy. ‘Power resources approaches’, when spatialised, historicised and entwined with labour process analysis, help to explain the breadth of employer-driven change and the unevenness of union responses.

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