Power, Place and Scale: Union Recognition in the Pilbara, 1999-2002

By Bradon Ellem

From 1999 BHP Iron Ore set out to reduce union presence in their Pilbara iron ore mining operations.

In 2002 Rio Tinto balloted employees on a shift to non-union agreements. Management strategy was much less successful in recent attempts to eliminate the union than when BHP began its strategy in 1999. Union activists have constructed strategies informed by their own readings of local history and geographies, and arguments grounded in a consciousness of place were a source of union power.

(Labour and Industry; vol. 13, no 2, December 2002)