“We need the miners as much as they need us,” said Mr Cain,recalling being arrested for protesting with mining workers in the United Kingdom under the Thatcher government as a younger man.
"There is no union in the country that can do what we can do together,"Mr Cain said over folk music and footage of the different parts of the union at rallies and picket lines together in the social media video."I urge all the miners to stick solid,stick fast with the union."
But 327 mining delegates,who represent the union on the ground (and under it) at mines across the country,would have none of it.
"The structure of the amalgamated Union once served us well,but that ceased to be the case some time ago,"a statement unanimously endorsed by the delegates at the quadrennial convention in Cessnock reads."Now there is just macho posturing and chest beating."
Their divisional president,Tony Maher,whonegotiated with the government for legislation last year to let the union split,gave a rousing speech giving his case for an independent mining union.
“We are respected by all sides of politics even where we disagree -- except the Greens,” Mr Maher said in an apparent backhanded reference to both construction union officials’ conflicts with other unions and the ALP and a rejoinder to those who criticised him for working with the government.