Albanese backs new report on coal mining casual labour in Hunter and Queensland

With a "multiplier effect" fed into the economic modelling, the McKell Institute report puts the impact on the Hunter region at between $158 million and $282 million a year.

Corresponding impacts in Queensland total more than $540 million, for an overall cost of as much as $825 million a year.

The Hunter impacts were calculated based on a mining workforce of about 8700, with contractors paid $90,000 a year and direct employees $133,000 a year.

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The report was commissioned by the CFMEU Mining and Energy Division and written for the self-described "progressive" McKell Institute by Sydney University academic Dr Stephen Whelan.

Titled Wage-cutting Strategies in the Mining Industry: the Cost to Communities and Workers, it is being launched by Mr Albanese on Thursday in Mackay.

The report uses the difference in earnings to argue that less money is returned to the community through wages, and that the lower-paying labour-hire practices are having a negative impact on the regions in which they operate.

Endorsing its findings on Wednesday night, Mr Albanese said: "At the moment if you're working for a labour hire company in the mining industry, chances are you'll get 40 per cent less than a permanent worker.

"In many coal mines, more than half the workforce are casual labour hire workers. You won't hear a peep out of the Liberals or Nationals about this, which is the real issue facing mining communities.

"For Labor, it's pretty simple: same work, same pay."

CFMEU mining and energy division president Tony Maher said that given that the report did not include the impacts on coal mining outside of the three studied regions - the Illawarra being one such area - it was likely the "real cost of the mining industry's drive to contract-out work is closer to $1 billion a year.

In the report, Dr Whelan cites calculations to show that casual employment in mining had risen by 59 per cent in the years 2014-18, the highest of all industry categories recognised by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

"The wage-cutting strategies have resulted in up to $825 million being removed from local economies in just two mining regions," the report says.

"As well as directly hurting the workers concerned, the flow-on impacts reduce the social and economic benefits that mining brings to a number of major regions."

The Hunter impacts were calculated based on a mining workforce of about 8700, with contractors paid $90,000 a year and direct employees $133,000 a year.

The report modelled the wage reductions using a 30 per cent casual workforce, and 40 per cent, and ran two scenarios: one where "casual" employees took no unpaid leave, and again with them taking the same leave as permanent employees, which increased the saving to employers.

The report then calculated the impact of the lower wages into the wider community, using a well-known "input-output model" with a "multiplier" of 1.4 to calculate "the consumption effects" of the wage differences.

In the Hunter, the report used 2018 figures supplied by the CFMEU for Glencore's Liddell mine, where contractors were said to be on $90,024 and direct employees $133,444.

As well as looking at the major mining regions, the report looks at BHP's controversial "Operations Services" division, which Mr Maher described as "BHP contracting out to itself".

The report - and an accompanying union campaign, comes as the industry - and employers generally - wait for a decision in "WorkPac v Rossato" a Federal Court full bench case brought by the labour hire firm.

Mr Maher said the federal government was backing employers in the Rossato case, which was aimed at at the union's win in the "Skene" case.

Mr Maher said this found that "mineworkers were not genuine casuals if their work arrangements were regular and on-going on long-term advance rosters".

The McKell report comes also as the union is being criticised in federal parliament by One Nation Senator and former coal miner Malcolm Roberts, who has championed the complaints of former Mount Arthur casual Simon Turner.

The union has dismissed Senator Roberts's complaints but the federal government's Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave Funding) Corporation confirmed to Senate estimates last week that it was reviewing all of its files as a result of underpayments brought to it by the senator.

The industry is also watching closely as a number of class action court cases seek to recover casual mineworkers' underpayments, a number of them launched without the CFMEU's involvement by Canberra law firm Adero.

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