Bede Harding spoke on behalf of Australian Workers’ Union North District secretary Rodney Stockham and said the AWU represented about 30 per cent of the workforce at Mount Isa Mines, about 1000 employees.

The vote was close with 778 voting ‘‘yes’’ and 701 ‘‘no’’, and three informal votes.

“It was very close but resulted in the affirmative,” Mr Harding said. A “large percentage of the workforce didn’t participate” in the vote and Mr Harding believed that not voting was their way of protesting.

The voting system did not take into account employees who did not vote.

Mr Harding said the “hot and contentious issues” were performance-based pay with an Individual Performance Agreement within the new EA.

“A primary concern was the remuneration package which will be up to the discretion of the company and no locked-in wage increase,” Mr Harding said. “Many were concerned the IPA was open to favouritism from supervisors.’’

He said the IPA was open to “interpretation, distortion, and was more subjective than objective”.

But he admitted some saw the implementation of an IPA as a positive.

Another concern was the abolition of four agreements (mining, metalliferous plant, services and Black Star Open Cut) – instead the new EA opted for one blanket agreement.

Mr Harding said the AWU would ensure Glencore lived up to its commitment in the EA.

“We will be holding them to their commitments in the EA,” he said.

A Mount Isa Mines spokesman said in the past five months the company had been working in consultation with its EA workforce to determine the conditions within the new EA.

 “Yesterday and today our EA employees voted on whether or not they agreed to the terms and conditions outlined in the agreement,” the spokesman said.

 “Mount Isa Mines confirms that the proposed enterprise agreement has been approved by the workforce by a majority vote and we will now implement our new agreement across our Mount Isa Mines EA workforce.”