Latest news with #Helensburgh
ABC News
11 hours ago
- Business
- ABC News
Peabody coal mine workers locked out in wages dispute
Workers from an underground New South Wales coal mine are facing a lockout after taking limited industrial action over wage negotiations. About 160 permanent employees were locked out without pay from Wednesday this week to Thursday next week at the Metropolitan Mine in Helensburgh. The Mining and Energy Union said it would lodge a claim for a 15 per cent wage increase over three years, a one-off market rate increase of $1.50 per hour, plus a $4 increase to crib payments. The president of the union's NSW South West District, Mark Jenkins, said mine owner Peabody was punishing workers for exercising their industrial rights as they sought to negotiate a new enterprise agreement. "The workers enacted their industrial right and took some limited one-hour stoppages across their shifts," he said. Mr Jenkins said there was no warning. "We went into a bargaining meeting with the company on the day of the lockout and found out probably about an hour and 45 minutes after the bargaining meeting that the lockout was taking place," Mr Jenkins said. A Peabody spokesperson said Metropolitan Mine acknowledged that employees had engaged in industrial action, and the union had notified the company of further industrial action to come. "In response, Peabody implemented employer response action, with a lockout of employees commencing night shift Wednesday, 18 June and continuing until day shift Thursday, 26 June," the spokesperson said. The action follows a Federal Court decision last year ruling that 22 Peabody Energy crew members unjustly lost their jobs before being replaced by external contractors at the same mine in June 2020. The court found that replacing full-time employees with labour hire did not constitute "genuine redundancies". The lockout comes at a time when the nearby Tahmoor mine is also under pressure, but for a different reason, as the mine hasn't mined coal since February due to unpaid bills. About 560 mineworkers are still being paid but have been stripped of their regular bonuses. They are increasingly anxious about whether the mine, owned by British industrialist Sanjeev Gupta, and linked to the Whyalla steelworks, will reopen. Independent Member for Wollondilly Judy Hannan said this week the state government was monitoring and negotiating with the mine's owner GFG Alliance. The union has called for the state government to intervene.
BBC News
4 days ago
- BBC News
'Sugar boat' shipwreck set to sink from view on the River Clyde
It has been a landmark in the River Clyde for more than 50 now the famous "sugar boat" shipwreck between Helensburgh and Greenock is nearing a watery grave, according to local weather throughout the winter, including Storm Éowyn, has accelerated the vessel's Coles, a tour operator specialising in wrecks and dives, told BBC Scotland News that while he previously believed it would take around 30 years before the ship disappeared, he now estimates it will be gone in half that time - at most. The MV Captayannis was struck by strong winds on 27 January 1974, when moored on the Clyde while waiting to waiting to unload raw east African sugar for the Tate & Lyle refinery in the ship drifted, captain Theodorakis Ionnis hoped to reach Gare Loch and find shelter the ship drifted into the anchor chains of a BP tanker called British Light - an incident which ripped a hole in the hull of the Captayannis below the set out to help, and the Captayannis crew were able to escape onto the MV Rover passenger launch - but in the aftermath the ship itself keeled over, where it has remained since. In the years since the accident the ship has become a popular tourist attraction, letting visitors see a real life shipwreck up close, without having to dive into the has also become a home for sea bids and fish, but when Jason Coles travelled to the boat for the time this year, he found it eerily quiet."Everything had been stripped away," he explains. "It didn't look like the sugar boat- there wasn't a bird to be seen, there wasn't even any fish guts lying on it, and a few of the layers of hull had been stripped away as well, showing signs of fracture."The weather was really harsh [over winter], and it looks like the waves have come over the top of the hull and landed on the wreck. It's made such an indentation, it's incredible – the weight of all that water has buckled the main decks." The sugar boat's damage Mr Coles estimated a a crack in the bottom of the hull has quadrupled, while the majority of the hull's starboard side has collapsed inwards and parts of the boat have been torn open from stormy weather. Mr Coles suspects the added damage will make the boat more vulnerable to future bad weather, creating a cycle that will only end when the Captayannis finally sinks for good. He believes that will be a sad sight, as the boat is a local fixture - to the extent a Helensburgh hotel and restaurant are named after is also a link to the past for the west of Scotland as a Coles, who has run his company Wreckspeditions from Dunoon since 2018, said: "The Clyde and Glasgow were the biggest powerhouses in shipbuilding, and I think the sugar industry stopped only a few years after the sinking so it's almost a reminder of when that industry stopped in the Clyde."She's done well to last 50 years, really – everyone thinks of the Clyde as being very sheltered but we do get rough water here and some strong winds. " While the boat was inevitably going to sink eventually, Mr Coles believes the timeline has been sped up drastically. He said: "The difference in the past several months was quite stark. The storms and the weather are becoming more variable and more extreme."I used to say it'd be there for another 20 or 30 years, but after seeing that there's no chance it'll be that long. You're probably talking half of that time, at most."Ownership of the boat has been disputed since the accident, which is partly why it was never salvaged. Mr Coles believes nothing more can be done for the said: "I don't think anything can be done, you can't really protect her. It's just the nature of the beast, the more she gets hit. "I'd love it to be there forever but she will go down at some point - we just have to keep an eye on her and enjoy her while we can."
