The AMWU has slammed the latest in a series of redundancies made at Fairfax Media’s pre-press print operations in regional Victoria.
AMWU Print Division National Secretary , Lorraine Cassin, said workers had experienced nothing but uncertainty since Rural Press and Fairfax amalgamated four years ago.
“For about the last three years, every six months we’ve had an announcement of a restructure, particularly in the regional areas. How much longer can this go on?”
Workers, many of whom have worked several decades, are unhappy with the inability of management to deliver a stable environment. Ms Cassin said the latest changes raised more questions.
“Is it going to be a wind down to zero? Will there actually be a future for our members in Warrnambool, Bendigo and Horsham?
The union is concerned that the company is deliberately sending work to sites without a union collective agreement.
“Fairfax says it’s more cost affective to bring its work into hubs. The only thing we can say about that, is these three sites (Warrnambool, Bendigo and Horsham) have collective agreements covering them. And the one that’s getting the work doesn’t.”
The company says 2, 4, and 9 jobs will be lost from Horsham, Bendigo and Warrnambool respectively, before the end of 2011.
“It’s disappointing. They say they will have discussions with us, but in discussions in the past we’ve never been able to change their position on job losses.”
She said workers in Warrnambool were devastated by the news.
“It’s not like there are other jobs in Warrnambool for pre-press workers.
“The company has suggested there may be opportunities for them in Ballarat. But they will have to apply for those jobs and it’s not likely they will want to move from Warrnambool to Ballarat.
Ms Cassin was critical of the company for failing to provide retraining opportunities.
“Fairfax have been winding back their pre-press section for years. But they don’t give people opportunities to retrain in other parts of the business. They don’t look at those options. You’d like to think the company valued its workers and wanted to hang on to those skills, but they don’t seem to think about those things.”