The staff numbers at Blayney Essential Energy depot could be halved, and possibly even completely closed, after Essential Energy was given approval to cut 600 jobs across NSW.
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On Wednesday November 23 the full bench of the Fair Work Commission granted the power company permission to implement the forced redundancies by July 2018.
Electrical Trades Union deputy secretary Dave McKinley said that the company’s true target was to halve it’s current workforce down to only 1600 by 2019, a move that would almost certainly see the depot closing, and response times increasing.
“Once 2018 is over, the company will have open slather on how many workers they can sack,” he said. “It means that depots like Blayney, Trundle, Molong could well close and call outs would need to come from under-staffed depots in Cowra, Bathurst or Orange.”
Mr McKinley said that Essential Energy were refusing to announce just what positions were being axed.
Essential Energy Chief Executive Officer John Cleland said that company officials would be visiting 60 NSW sites in the next few days.
“We have no plans to implement the provisions before Christmas, except for those employees previously identified as redeployees (around 30),” he said.
Following the massive swing against the Nationals in the Orange by-election, Mr McKinley said that the employment figures since the coalition came to power in 2011 show just what can happen when government’s don’t listen.
“In 2011 there were 4,400 essential energy workers, now there are 3,200 and they want to halve that by 2019 to only 1600,” he said, “The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers are going to make big inroads into regional areas at the next election unless the local members stand up.”
The unions called on Nationals leader John Barilaro to intervene to save regional jobs.
“I am as concerned as everybody in relation to job losses, but I’m also concerned about prices of electricity for businesses and homeowners and making sure we have reliable power supply. We’ve got to find a balance,” he said.
“We will be there in place to support Essential Energy workers, let’s hope they will do this in a way that it doesn’t impact on regional communities and does it in the best way to support those workers.”
Mark Logan
Started working in newspapers in the 1990's in the darkroom of the Pastoral Times in Deniliquin before moving to Millthorpe in 2003. Soon after arriving I started as a photographer at the CWD. Now a journalist at the Blayney Chronicle.
Started working in newspapers in the 1990's in the darkroom of the Pastoral Times in Deniliquin before moving to Millthorpe in 2003. Soon after arriving I started as a photographer at the CWD. Now a journalist at the Blayney Chronicle.
