Adi Jobs Shed As Contract Tails Off
Newcastle Herald
Tuesday August 13, 2002
MINEHUNTER builder ADI has laid off eight more workers from its Carrington site, with at least 100 more jobs set to go in coming months.
An ADI spokesman confirmed the Carrington workforce had fallen from a peak two years ago of about 550 to this week's level of 152.
Melbourne-based spokesman Leigh Funston said there were no set dates for the next retrenchments, with the jobs to go gradually as the work subsided over the rest of this year.
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union organiser Brad Stewart said the eight men lost their jobs on Friday, leading to a mass meeting at the Carrington site at 7am yesterday.
`Management have ad-vised the workers that there is an ongoing lack of work at the site, and that if anyone else wanted to take redundancy, they would accept it,' Mr Stewart said.
`They have also asked people to work off their leave and are looking at things like people taking unpaid leave, although that's not something the union would encourage.
`We're hopeful ADI will win the patrol boat contract but, with the minehunter work expected to run out before the end of this year, that still leaves until March if ADI won the tender, and then another few months before they could possibly start work.
`By then it might be too late to save a lot of those jobs.'
The sixth and last minehunter left Newcastle re-cently for sea trials off the south coast.
It will return this year for final adjustments before being handed over to the Navy.
`We've always been up front about the fact that we would need more work to sustain the workforce and the Carrington facility,' Mr Funston said.
ADI had to service the minehunters throughout their working life, which would provide another 20 or 30 jobs, but this work was unlikely to be done in Newcastle if the Carrington plant closed.
ADI's main hope for Carrington is the Navy's $400million patrol boat contract, due to be announced in March next year.
NSW Premier Bob Carr is leading a State push supporting ADI's bid against two Western Australian rivals.
ADI has already won a small contract to build amphibious landing craft for HMAS Manoora and Kanimbla, but this will create work for only about 40 people.
Mr Funston said the Government would tomorrow release tenders to replace the Navy's 30-year-old fleet of `bridge erection and propulsion boats'.
`It's too early to say anything yet, but this is the sort of job that would ideally be done at Newcastle if ADI was to bid for the work, and win.'
Mr Stewart said it was important the patrol boat contract came to Newcastle.
`As the union has been saying for some time, we need to make things here, or the jobs will disappear,' Mr Stewart said.
© 2002 Newcastle Herald