BIG BUSINESS'S assault on Labor's IR policy was led by BHP Billiton who described it as "a retrograde step that will only contribute to inflexibility for employers and employees". But no one should expect a company like BHP to support fairness. Just look at their record.BHP made a $13.7 billion profit last year, the largest in Australian history by any company.

When it comes to "flexibility", BHP certainly has a different attitude to its workers than to its corporate executives.

While opposing the rights of workers to appeal against dismissal, BHP has been very generous towards bosses that they've made redundant.

Former chief executive Brian Gilbertson was sacked after 18 months in the job. He received a $12 million payout plus a $1.5 million a year pension.

Last year alone, current CEO Chip Goodyear received a bonus equivalent to a 14 per cent pay rise and other executives received up to a 20 per cent increases. Goodyear's total pay increased by 48.1 per cent between 2003 and 2006-up to $8.67 million per year. The BHP board says he is worth it because of the record profits of recent years-but these profits have come due to soaring commodity prices.

BHP has not shown the same generosity towards workers, the environment, or the developing nations it runs operations in.

In BHP's Iron Ore sector almost the entire workforce is on individual contracts.

BHP vindictively urged the Fair Pay Commission to stop giving any minimum wage increase to the few workers who refused to sign and stay on awards.

In December last year, BHP refused to let a union health and safety officer into a mine site when a 19-year-old worker was killed in an accident at the Cannington mine in north-west Queensland.

BHP has often been criticised for its environmental record. BHP operations include the Olympic Dam Uranium mine, the largest deposit in the world. BHP intends to develop a $5 billion expansion to increase exports to China and India in the future.

In 1999, BHP reported that its Ok Tedi mine was the cause of "major environmental damage" in Papua New Guinea. The mine operators admitted discharging 80 million tons of contaminated tailings, waste and mine-induced erosion into the river system each year.

BHP were involved alongside AWB in the Iraqi oil for food scandal. The Cole inquiry into the abuse of the UN's oil-for-food programme revealed that BHP provided $5 million worth of wheat on credit to Iraq in the 1990s to secure oil exploration rights.

By Brian Webb