Bluescope Axes More Positions

Illawarra Mercury

Tuesday December 23, 2008

By BRETT COX

FORTY workers have lost their jobs after BlueScope Steel cut more contract positions from its Port Kembla plant.

The Mercury can reveal Veolia Environmental Services employees were notified that they would be made redundant last Friday, less than a week before Christmas.

It was the second instance of redundancies this month in companies which provide contract work to BlueScope Steel.

On December 10, the Mercury reported seven Transfield Services employees had been made redundant after 200 contract positions at Port Kembla, filled by various companies, were axed. At the time, unions warned the job losses were the "tip of the iceberg".

Veolia Environmental Services, responsible for industrial cleaning at BlueScope, yesterday released a statement saying "the number of operator positions in the company's Industrial Services division in Wollongong will be reduced by 40".

Its NSW general manager, Peter Murray, said the reductions were a result of the economic situation and a major downturn in customer demand in the Illawarra.

"It is with much regret that we have been forced to reduce our workforce at our operations in Wollongong due to circumstances outside the company's control," Mr Murray said.

"After reviewing our operations following the recent announcement by one of our customers of a major reduction in demand for our services, we have streamlined the skill base required going forward.

"We are working diligently with union representatives to find ways of keeping the number of redundancies as low as possible, and we will be giving staff help and support during this difficult time."

A BlueScope Steel spokesman said the company was being forced to "reduce costs through actions such as cutting back on non-essential spending, eliminating overtime, and running down accrued leave.

"Unfortunately this has caused a reduction in workload for some contracting companies and their employees," he said.

The global downturn, which has severely affected the demand for steel, has already prompted BlueScope to shut its mill and paint line operations at Port Kembla over Christmas, with up to 1500 employees asked to take leave.

However the company has brought forward the reline of its No 5 blast furnace due to the slowdown, which it says will create 1400 jobs for the first half of 2009.

Australian Workers' Union organiser Branko Gorgievski said the union planned to today challenge Veolia over the redundancies in the Industrial Relations Commission.

He said the union had concerns about how the process was carried out and that full-time employees were made redundant when "flexi hire" staff remained.

"The workers are very disappointed, especially because it happened at this time of year," Mr Gorgievski said.

"We are talking about people who have had to tell their families at Christmas they no longer have a job."

Veolia said employees would be paid out "all entitlements and wages owing" and had been offered counselling.