The Meat Workers' Union has expressed its outrage over the forced closure of the Ingham's processing plant at Cardiff, which will leave 355 workers without a job after August.
The company has said the closure is in an effort to cut costs and save money at a range of outlets across Australia since Ingham's was purchased by a large, American company 3 years ago.
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| Ingham's employees leave, knowing their job is no longer secure [Source: The Newcastle Herald] |
Ingham's has confirmed they will provide redundancy payouts to workers, as well as paying for training programs for current employees to find new work.
Meat Worker's Union Branch Secretary Grant Courtney says Ingham's still isn't doing enough for their employees who don't have the skills to do much else.
"These people have worked in the industry a long time ... the company's just going to throw them on the scrap heap," he said.
He says Ingham's isn;t doing much for Cardiff workers, but it's working hard to make the processing industry in Australia better.
"They're going to invest $400 million in the processing industry, and that's a good thing for the industry, but it's not good for our member at Cardiff," he says.
"If the company's got that amount of money to splurge around to improve other processing plants across the country and can't throw money out to Cardiff; I just think it's a bad call."
Union members and executives are calling for a town hall meeting some time next week in an effort to discuss what's next for meat processing in the Hunter.
Courtney has worked with Ingham's to change their minds, but hasn't been successful.
"We've asked the company to go back to their senior figureheads and get them to reconsider their position [but] the company has said no at this stage, the decision is final, that's what it is."
