Staff Sought Abroad As Local Jobs Go

23 September 2008

A LEADING defence contractor has come under fire for slashing a third of its shipbuilding workforce at Williamstown while at the same time applying for dozens of foreign employees on temporary 457 visas to fill other positions.

BAE Systems, which bought out Tenix in June, will cut 81 jobs in a move that will reduce its production workforce at Williamstown to about 165 positions. A decade ago it employed about 1000 people in that area.

Company human resources director Wayne Achurch said a gap in big projects until 2010 meant that it had to reduce jobs.

"We have a large gap in our production work," Mr Achurch said.

But Australian Manufacturing Workers Union state secretary Steve Dargavel attacked the company for cutting jobs while at the same time applying for foreign workers through the controversial 457 visa program.

Mr Achurch confirmed the company was looking to source staff through 457 visas, but he said none of them would replace the people who are to lose their jobs in Williamstown. He would not say how many positions BAE planned to fill with visas but that it was likely to be between 20 and 30 positions and mostly in senior engineering or managerial roles.

Mr Achurch said the average age of the production workforce was nearing 50 and he expected many employees to be attracted by the offer of voluntary redundancy.

A company spokesman also confirmed that, when production ramped up again from 2010, BAE would look favourably on workers made redundant.

But the union and staff expected few takers in the voluntary redundancy program, forcing staff to be laid off against their wishes.

Wayne Freeman, a self-described jack-of-all-trades at the site, said it would be hard to find a job.

"As my age is 42, where am I going to go to find another job?" he said.

Mr Dargavel said the work flow at BAE had been mismanaged by the company and the Federal Government.

He called on federal Labor to enact a policy that awarded contracts favouring local suppliers on price.

"Kevin Rudd promised the electorate to introduce a 20% price preference ... we say that election promise needs now to be implemented," he said.

Parliamentary secretary for defence procurement Greg Combet told The Age that the job losses were due to "peaks and troughs" in the shipbuilding industry and that the cuts were unfortunate.

He said the Government had asked the Defence Materiel Organisation to look for jobs elsewhere in the industry for those to be made redundant.

But he shied away from particular price targets for local suppliers, saying there were better ways to target industry policy through, for instance, requiring big companies to use local subcontractors when they were competitive.

Mr Dargavel pointed to the Landing Helicopter Dock project It involves the construction of two giant ships from 2010, with most of the work to be done in Spain and only some at Williamstown.

Acting Premier Rob Hulls conceded that manufacturing was going through difficult times but said, overall, the economy was healthy. -- With DAVID ROOD

KEY POINTS

? BAE Systems to cut 81 production jobs at Williamstown.

? Company hopes to fill 20 to 30 other positions on 457 visas.

? Union expects few staff to take voluntary redundancies.


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