An Australian appeal court has overturned a lower court's decision and concluded that Australian miner Rio Tinto's non-union contracts signed with employees in 2008 at its Pilbara operations in Western Australia are invalid according to Australia's federal work law.
The non-union agreement in question was not an "employee collective agreement" as defined by the legislation.
While Rio Tinto says that the union's lawsuit aims to destabilize the company's business by invalidating the agreements to launch strikes, the union's national legal officer Alex Bukarica denied these claims, stating that they previously reached agreements without strikes.