Worsley workers walk off for 48 hours, demanding Alcoa’s pay before Alcoa owns them

The people who keep one of the world’s biggest alumina refineries running stopped work on Tuesday morning, and their argument is with an employer that will not be their employer for much longer.

More than 100 maintenance workers at South32’s Worsley Alumina refinery, near Collie in Western Australia’s South West, began 48 hours of protected industrial action. With officials from the Electrical Trades Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, they formed a picket line on the road into the plant.

Their demand is simple to state: the pay and hours Alcoa gives its own refinery workers elsewhere in the state. Alcoa agreed in July to buy Worsley and South32’s other aluminium assets, and the unions want a new enterprise agreement locked in before the keys change hands.

What are the workers asking for?

Parity. The unions say South32’s maintenance crews earn less and work more hours than Alcoa employees doing the same jobs at its Pinjarra and Wagerup refineries.

“They deserve to be paid the same money” for the same job, AMWU state secretary Steve McCartney said, adding that the decision to strike had not been taken lightly.

There is a second fear. The unions say discretionary bonuses could disappear after the takeover, at a cost of up to 10 per cent of a worker’s wages.

ETU state secretary Adam Woodage said the unions remained open to talks but had not heard from South32 since the workforce delivered what he called an overwhelming “no” vote on the company’s latest offer.

Workers on the picket line spoke without giving their names. One, with 15 years at the refinery, said he was there for newer colleagues on inferior pay and conditions for identical work.

What does South32 say?

That it is still talking, and that the refinery will keep running. A company spokesperson said South32 continued to engage constructively with its staff and pointed to benefits beyond base pay.

On bonuses, the company said its existing short-term benefit policy would continue under Alcoa’s ownership, and that workers and unions had been told so.

“We have plans in place to support ongoing operations,” the spokesperson said. The timing blunts the strike’s immediate effect: the main plant that turns bauxite into alumina was already scheduled to be shut down for maintenance.

Why is the timing so pointed?

Because a sale is the moment a workforce has leverage, and the moment it has most to lose.

Alcoa announced on 1 July that it would buy South32’s 86 per cent stake in Worsley, along with smelting and refining interests in South Africa and Brazil, for up to US$5.6 billion, roughly $8 billion. The deal needs shareholder and regulatory approval and is expected to be completed in the first half of 2027.

For the buyer, an unresolved pay dispute is a cost it will inherit. For the seller, it is a problem with an end date. For the workers, an agreement signed now sets the floor for whatever Alcoa offers later.

Worsley matters well beyond its gate. It mines bauxite near Boddington, carries it by conveyor about 50 kilometres to the refinery and ships alumina, the white powder that smelters turn into aluminium, through the port of Bunbury. It is a major employer in a region already absorbing the wind-down of Collie’s coal-fired power stations.

Workers say the squeeze is not new. One on the picket line said conditions had been steadily eroded since South32 was spun out of BHP in 2015.