More than 300 jobs at the Blackwater mine in central Queensland will be replaced by contractors as mining giant BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance attempts to keep it commercially viable.
There will be no forced redundancies from the move, which was announced to workers on Thursday morning, however it has incensed the CFMEU which claims it will seriously damage the Blackwater community.
Queensland spokesman Steve Smyth accused the company of seeking to construct a cheap and compliant workforce that could be sacked at short notice.
"BHP wants to remove full-time, permanent employees who live locally and replace them with contractors who have no job security, will receive less pay, and have inferior working conditions compared to current BHP employees under their enterprise agreement," he said.
The company said pre-strip activities, mobile maintenance and drill and blast operations had been awarded to a contractor with "strict commercial performance guarantees".
It was the best prospect for the mine to continue to operate in a commercially viable way and provide ongoing employment opportunities, BMA Asset President Rag Udd said.
"Despite extensive work over the past three years to reset our costs and to safely improve the productivity at each of our mines, further deterioration of global metallurgical coal prices means that we must continue to find ways to safely improve our operational performance," he said.
But Mr Smyth said the company's Bowen Basin mines were still highly profitable and it couldn't justify the "ruthless behaviour" by pointing to lower coal prices.
"Any savings made by ripping off workers will go straight out of the Bowen Basin and Queensland and directly into the company's pockets," he said.
Mr Udd acknowledged the decision would cause uncertainty for those affected, who will be consulted from Friday, but said the decision could include redeployments.
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