DOZENS of Hunter mine jobs will shift to Queensland in a move the mining unit has labelled "completely unworkable".
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The CFMMEU says 80 workers from BHP's Mount Arthur coal mine near Muswellbrook will lose their jobs unless they shift to central Queensland or remote South Australia in November.
The staff are employed by Operations Services (OS), which was established in 2018 to provide production and maintenance services to multiple BHP mine sites and employs 4000 people.
Staff have been deployed at Queensland mines and Mt Arthur since 2019, but the Hunter mine's service agreement is due to expire on November 1.
The union says it is taking the matter to the Fair Work Commission on behalf of the staff at "BHP's fully-owned labour hire subsidiary".
A conciliation hearing on the matter was held earlier this month.
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The union says it is considering further legal options opposing the redeployment.
Northern mining and NSW energy vice president Jeff Drayton said the distinction between the staff and other workers at the Hunter Valley site was arbitrary.
A statement from the union quoted one staff member saying he was reluctant to uproot his family after settling in the region to be near Mt Arthur for work.
"We were promised roses but got sold a lemon. When I took the job with OS, we were told this was a permanent job, that we weren't going anywhere," he said.
"I'm very anxious about what happens to me come November. I wear a BHP shirt to work every day and I'm appealing to BHP to please keep us on as permanent mineworkers at Mt Arthur.
"Now we've been told the only jobs available are thousands of kilometres away and that's just our bad luck."
BHP's divestment review of its coal operations continues.
While Operations Services staff are beyond the scope of that review, the company is understood to be exploring options for Mt Arthur.
A BHP spokesman said the subsidiary would "conclude the provision of production services at Mt Arthur Coal later this year and team members will move to other sites".
Mr Drayton said it was "incomprehensible" that staff couldn't move to Mt Arthur's site enterprise agreement and keep working in the region.
He said the shift was especially challenging given border restrictions amid the pandemic, making potential long-term or even temporary fly-in fly-out arrangements difficult.
"BHP is suggesting that these workers either uproot their families from the Hunter Valley and move to regional Queensland; or commit to flying every week for work at their own expense while navigating hard border closures," he said.
"It's absurd. If BHP won't do the right thing and give these workers the permanent enterprise agreement job they deserve, they should at least admit these roles no longer exist and give them redundancy entitlements."