Former workers fight BHP for Newman homes

Several former BHP Billiton employees made redundant from their positions at Mount Whaleback mine have engaged law firm Slater & Gordon to fight for their Newman homes amid claims the company altered aspects of its home ownership scheme.

It is believed that, while a large number of employees involved in the company’s home ownership scheme in Newman were made redundant, only those who had participated for more than 10 years were in a position to make extra payments to secure the title.

BHP’s long-standing home ownership scheme is designed to get people out of mining camps and into towns.

It operates like a rent-to-own program, whereby workers live in the home and make regular payments and, at the end of the term, have the option to buy the property outright for a price originally agreed upon.

The scheme is part of BHP’s significant development of the mining town of Newman, which dates back to the 1960s.

In the past four years, BHP has spent $41 million building homes in the town, which has a population of about 5,500.

On condition of anonymity, four BHP Billiton employees who had been part of the housing scheme in Newman for about 10 years told Business News the company had changed the terms of their contracts without warning, so instead of owing less than $20,000 each they now owed more than $100,000 each.

The employees, who have worked at BHP for between 12 and 35 years, said the company had their homes revalued at the time about 170 workers at Mount Whaleback were made redundant.

The former workers allege they were singled out for redundancies because they were union members who had spoken out about safety issues and rumoured changes to rosters and break times.

“They had to get rid of all of us to change the rules … they couldn’t change them while we were there because we were just a thorn in their side,” one of the former workers told Business News.

A BHP Billiton spokesperson declined to comment about individual contracts with employees, saying it had at all times acted to ensure a fair and reasonable outcome for employees.

Transport Workers Union assistant branch secretary Paul Aslan said BHP had not been forthcoming about its redundancy process.

“They say it’s voluntary, but it’s very, very compulsory redundancies,” Mr Aslan said.

“Anybody that has a say about any problems on the site or complains about safety issues or anything like that … they’re regarded as an irritation to the company and obviously (BHP has) now moved to use money to get rid of them, at the same time throwing them out of their houses and trying to diddle them out of the current price for their houses.”

One former worker told Business News BHP would not provide details as to why they had been chosen for redundancies, and requests to swap with other workers were denied.

“Each of us had people in identical positions approach us and ask if we would swap with them because they were happy to leave if we were happy to stay, so BHP was approached and asked ... would you look at doing a swap and they just said ‘no, these are the people that we have chosen for a redundancy package, these are the people that are going’,” he said.

A BHP spokesman told Business News the company remained committed to supporting the local communities in which it operated and would continue to have a residential workforce in Newman.

“BHP Billiton has also made significant investment in Newman through our community development program, which includes more than $30 million in community programs and small grants over the past five years,” he said.

“BHP Billiton has a long and proud history in Newman  ... and we intend to continue our presence in Newman for decades to come.”