The AMWU has called on aircraft manufacturer Boeing to reverse its unnecessary decision to make over 300 people redundant from their Fishermans Bend site in Melbourne.

AMWU Victorian Secretary Steve Dargavel said that decisions to restructure and shift work offshore from Boeing’s Hawker De Havilland operations would cause more than 300 job losses over the next 18 months.
 
“Workers are shocked and dismayed at Boeing’s announcement that they will shift work offshore to the US, and relocate operations to the Sydney site despite existing contracts and ongoing demand for operations here,” said Mr. Dargavel.
 
“It is our belief that Boeing is shifting operations to their Sydney site to lift its saleability.

“We call on the company to reconsider, as we will see virtually half the workforce lose their jobs from the Fishermans Bend site.
 
“It is clearly a short-term profit-driven management decision to put all their resources and efforts into one smaller project – the 787 Dreamliner.

“But the fact that this product is not yet operational or even in production shows that it is a risky decision that will impact drastically on workers.”

AMWU delegate at Boeing Jason Sherwood said morale among the workers had hit ‘rock bottom’.

“Not many people see a future for themselves in the company and changes in management style means that we’re often not consulted and left out of the loop.”

Mr Sherwood said that the redundancies will be staged at four different intervals, two later this year with another two next year.

“This creates a lot of uncertainty because we don’t know who will be targeted. So people will be coming into work for the next six to twelve months wondering if they will be on the hit list.

“Three hundred jobs is a big chunk out of the one thousand who are currently employed here.”

Mr Sherwood said the company had been turning work away in recent times which had raised suspicions among the workforce.

“It’s one thing to have a downturn, but when we were turning work down, we knew something was up.”