Boggabri Coal lockout averted through cooling-off move

Most workers at a meeting at Gunnedah Town Hall yesterday voted for the move, put forward by the CFMEU.

This means staff will return to work sooner than an original lockout period of nine days, and the union and Idemitsu will enter into a "three-week cooling-off period" until December 15.

Boggabri Coal chief operating officer Steve Kovac confirmed the agreement in an email to CFMEU district president Peter Jordan during the meeting.

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"During the cooling-off period there will be no industrial action by either party including lockouts, strikes or other types of action on site e.g picket lines ... bans on specific work etc," Mr Kovac wrote.

Representatives from both parties will now meet to continue talks on Idemitsu's proposed new enterprise agreement.

Idemitsu put the nine-day lockout in place after 88 per cent of workers voted "no" to its proposal, their concerns being:

"Workers at Boggabri are not asking for anything that isn't already provided to workers at Muswellbrook and Ensham," Mr Jordan said.

"Boggabri produces top-quality coal and there's no reason why these workers should be treated differently, with worse pay and conditions, just because they are in the Gunnedah Basin."

Union members have held rolling strikes and stoppages since the end of August, as negotiations go on towards the new enterprise bargain agreement.

Mr Jordan had called the nine-day lockout, which would have run until 6am on Monday, December 2, "a heavy-handed response" to workers rejecting the company's latest offer.