A successful Just Transition can demonstrate that we can have local well-paying jobs as well as a good outcome for the environment and our energy bills.
The Collie Just Transition Plan (https://www.wa.gov.au/government/publications/collies-just-transition-plan), released in December 2020, was one of the good news stories of the last year.
This Plan was developed and written by the Just Transition Working Group, a body established to bring together unions, employers, community leaders, government and others to develop a plan to protect the jobs and future of the town of Collie over the next 15 years as we see a decline in the demand for coal. It is happening within the context of the Distributed Energy Resource Roadmap (DER roadmap), which plans for the future of WA’s SWIS electricity grid.
The intention of the Plan is to make sure that in the transition away from coal, the community of Collie can go from strength to strength. The Plan is focused on the four areas the Working Group knows are essential:
- Maximising opportunities for affected workers;
- Diversification of the local economy;
- Celebrating Collie’s history and promoting its future; and
- Ensuring ongoing commitment for the Just Transition.
AMWU members at Griffin mine in Collie during their pay dispute in 2018 (Photo: AMWU WA Branch)
The town of Collie was created for the coal industry, which has powered WA for a century. The coal mines supply coal for the local power stations and smelter, and not for export use. The community is full of skilled workers who for generations have kept the lights on in WA. Now we are increasing the use of renewable energy, and the demand for coal is decreasing, it should not mean that people are turned out of work and regional towns are left to empty. For many of the workers, their other choice is to ‘go FIFO’ on the mines up North – a choice that means trading away family life, mental health, and community involvement for a steady pay check.
Another option is possible, if workers are provided certainty in town. An early marker of success was the MoU between Synergy (the Government-trading enterprise) and representative unions to retrain, redeploy, and/or pay redundancies to any affected staff from the first scheduled closures of Muja power station units. These Synergy employees have now started on their individually planned transition processes.
A successful Just Transition can demonstrate that we can have local well-paying jobs as well as a good outcome for the environment and our energy bills.
A Just Transition achieved through a community-led process can demonstrate much more: that we can use the economy to build and support the communities we want, rather than having a community created to support the economy.
How did this come about?
The Working Group itself was established after the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union and other unions and community groups pushed the approach that nothing should be decided about Collie’s future, without Collie’s input. A peak turning point was when community meetings organised by unions were gaining far greater attendance than formal consultation processes with Ministers. This sent a clear message that Ministers must listen to the community, rather than vice versa.
A year’s worth of writing the plan, parallel to the work the unions were doing with Synergy on the MoU, followed. The release of the Plan, signed off by the Premier, was a real milestone that should be celebrated. But now the work begins to make sure the plan gets done.
What now?
The Working Group has identified several key industries it would like in the mix for Collie’s future. These are based on what would work in location, support the skills base, provide employment, and is desired by the town. In addition to diversifying the economy with expanded tourism, several new industries are also slated as possibilities for the region. Eco-concrete, battery storage unit manufacturing, wind turbine manufacturing and other new technologies are possible, and would keep Collie at the centre of a power system that runs more than half on renewables already.
But to have any of these established in a meaningful way by the time needed to pick up employment from other industries, the Government must be willing to get far more involved in strategic economic planning than it currently shows itself to be.
There is $80 million dollars in the Collie Futures Fund, but the market-based approach of ‘we open the doors, you come to pitch’ is not going to move new industry into the region in the time required. We believe that using the tools of government procurement and appropriate local content incentives for strategic projects we could get further into these new industries much more rapidly.
Time pressures
The timeline of the transition is more generous than was possible for the La Trobe valley. But it’s still going faster than written in the plan. Coal workers at Premier coal mine have already seen their shifts cut from 12 to 10.5 hours in response to a lack of demand. This is enough to start make people wonder if they should stay around for the axe to fall, or go FIFO early. Contractors at Synergy, who don’t fall under the MoU although representing half of the workforce, are asking themselves the same questions as they see their workmates head off to retrain.
On a larger scale, there is another time pressure – getting left behind in the boom of renewables manufacturing. Australia is already perhaps irreparably behind in the fabrication of EVs. We have a chance of making battery storage units for homes for hot and remote locations, a speciality of WA manufacturers. We could create wind turbines here which would create a demand for Australian steel – and perhaps a green steel industry. But none of this is possible if we let the free hand of the market decide. Thankfully, there is one powerful little town in the South West of WA who is willing to fight for that work.
- Alex Cassie
Come along to our Collie Transition Plan event on Wednesday 19 May
Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUsduiuqTIpG9dlIQgJAGViOoS6JWRnmw-V1
Join WA AMWU Branch Secretary Steve McCartney, and Sean Emmett (AMWU Delegate in Muja Power Station) to talk about the transformational Collie Transition Plan.
This Plan was developed by the Just Transition Working Group which brought together unions, employers, community leaders, government, and others to develop a plan to protect the jobs and future of the town of Collie over the next 15 years, during which we will see a decline in the demand for coal.
The Working Group itself was established after the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union and other unions and community groups pushed the approach that nothing should be decided about Collie’s future without Collie’s input.
Note that we start at 7pm AEST and 5pm WA time.
