Chants of “Mike Baird’s got to go, hey hey, ho ho” rang out through the streets of Dubbo on Saturday as hundreds of people, including Member for Orange Philip Donato, marched in protest of Essential Energy job cuts.
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More than 100 community members, Essential Energy workers and trade unionists were joined by NSW Labor leader Luke Foley for a march organised by the United Services Union and the Electrical Trades Union.
The two unions represent workers at Essential Energy, which was given approval to forcibly cut at least 600 jobs by the Fair Work Commission (FWC) last month. The company also plans to halve its workforce to 1600 employees by the 2019 financial year, the FWC decision revealed.
USU general secretary Graeme Kelly said it was not yet known how many workers would lose their jobs. “We’re getting mixed reports...[but] I can tell you that people are getting phone calls to say ‘don’t come into work next week’.
“[People] are going to have to move to find other work. The prospect of a family having to sell their home, taking their children out of school and move to another location to find work for mum and dad is diabolical. And we're right on Christmas. This is a senseless, mindless action by this government and unless they see the writing on the wall, we’ll be pleased to see the results replicated in March 2019 that we saw in Orange.”
Mr Donato he was there to support the unions and “workers whose positions are in jeopardy”.
“In Orange, there's close to 200 people employed within Essential Energy so it's a matter of banding together, standing shoulder to shoulder and showing our support for the workers and really hopefully sending a message to the government that they need to look after regional jobs and regional communities,” he said.
Mr Donato said if forced amalgamations happens, these job loses will be “just another kick in the guts to regional communities in terms of the government not looking after regional jobs and regional communities."
Mr Foley, who was in town for Country Labor’s annual conference this weekend, called the forced redundancies unnecessary.
“It must impact on reliability and service levels but it will have a devastating impact to country towns,” he said. “None of this is necessary. The government is the owner of this business – it can make a decision not to proceed with these job cuts.”
