Workers at a mining equipment company at Tomago are on strike for 24 hours, for the second time in just over a week.
Employees at the PPK Mining Equipment say the owner of the company, Dale McNamara, froze their pay back in 2021 promising it would be lifted after a big merger went through.
The workers say the merger did go through and the company is making big profits, but their wages remain frozen.
Dale McNamara is a prominent businessman in the Hunter as well as a politician – he ran as the One Nation candidate for the Upper Hunter by-election in 2021 and ran as an Independent in the most recent state election.
This morning workers have gone on strike with their colleagues in the Illawarra where PPK also have a site that hires equipment to underground coal mines.
Australian Workers’ Union organiser Cameron Wright said the workers had no other choice but to down tools because management simply aren’t listening.
“Dale McNamara promised his workers if they took a pay freeze in 2019 to help PPK Mining Equipment through a difficult time they would be rewarded when things got better, well it doesn’t get much better than an international coal boom.
“Our members know how much business PPK Mining Equipment is doing because they are the ones dealing with the workload, it’s going gangbusters on the shop floor, they’ve got more work than they can do so they’re sick of management crying poor when profits are on the up and up.
“As well as a 24 hour strike members have slapped on an overtime ban because they’re constantly being asked to do overtime due to the huge workload and they’re sick of doing the extra work without a decent deal in place.
“When you repeatedly tell half truths to your workers, eventually they will call you out on it.”