Article: Workshops braced for 100 lay-offs

[ozbob]

From the Queensland Times click here!

Workshops braced for 100 lay-offs

Workshops braced for 100 lay-offs

Kieran Banks | 24th August 2012 2:00 AM

QR NATIONAL is expected to announce the final details on the looming job cuts at the Redbank workshop today - with unions expecting 100 positions to be axed.

The news will come after QR National yesterday announced a before tax profit of $584 million, up from $222 million last year and share by back scheme.

QR National employs 700 people at the Redbank workshops, with jobs to be axed from rolling stock maintenance depot, the foundry and coal wagon manufacturing sectors.

In a statement released yesterday, the company said it would accept approximately 750 voluntary redundancy applications.

ETU State organiser Jason Young believed 95 of staff affected at Redbank would qualify for a voluntary redundancy.

QR National estimated a one-off payment of $75 million would cover the redundancies.

Mr Young said QR National's financial status was considerably brighter then union officials were led to believe when the redundancies were announced.

He said the staff at Redbank had been waiting for weeks for QR National to release the final details.

"The only thing they have told us is they couldn't tell us anything," he said.

"I have got to say from our point of view we are quite angry about the process.

"We expected that (financial situation) to be worse, if anything neutral or a small profit. But then you see the announcement today."

In the announcement yesterday, QR National managing director and CEO Lance Hockridge said the voluntary redundancy programs would help the company continue to save costs.

"The benefits of transformation and restructuring, including the strong expected uptake for the current voluntary redundancy program, will deliver sustainable cost savings and efficiencies in coming years," he said.

"QR National remains absolutely committed to its growth strategy and will continue to execute on the wide range of growth opportunities available to it, especially in the resources sector."

The statement said the next phase of this restructure, with a range of proposals targeting improved productivity and lower costs, has been the subject of extensive consultation with employees and unions.

The ETU, along with other unions, has been battling QR National before Fair Work Australia over the number of redundancies in recent weeks.

Last month the company gave assurances the future of the Redbank workshops was not at risk.

The site was dubbed to be "critical" to its future operations, even with expressions of interest for voluntary redundancies opening yesterday. 

[#Metro]

Does it not occur that the reason for the increased profit is the direct result of a rolling program of redundancies?
Or would they rather prefer the storyline that the bosses made this huge profit and then hid it from anyone and sacked people anyway.

Cart before horse...

Also, the level of redundancies are absolutely massive. 500 here, 900 there...the sheer scale of the cuts suggests absolutely humungous inefficiency in the previous government operations.

[SurfRail]

If it is anything like the last round of voluntary redundancies, they will get a huge take-up and there will be nothing more said. 

QRN is doing this because they have worked out where to save money, not just directed managers to go in and decimate their subordinates (literally in the State Government's case - 1 in 10).

[ozbob]

Don't agree TT.  What you seeing is the fact that QRN doesn't run much in terms of general freight anymore, or passenger services.  Line closures, locomotives decommissioned, large amounts of rolling stock done away with.  What appears to be a cost saving at QRN is actually being transferred to the broader economy as the consequences of road freight.  All a big illusion which will come to back bite massively, don't you worry about that. 

The only thing QRN is really interested in is bulk commodities, little else.  They don't want to really run cattle trains.  They are just out to make money whereas QGR (QR) was there to serve the community.

Con jobs 101 ...

[colinw]

What we are seeing with QRN is no more than what happened with Freight Victoria / Freight Australia in the 1990s.  Ditto with Wisconsin Central  in NZ & Tasmania.

First few years were insanely profitable.

Then the wheels fell off, lines closed, and the hand went out to the Government for a bailout once the cream had been consumed.

Come back in 5-10 years and intrastate rail in QLD is going to be a shadow of its former self.  In non-coal areas there's going to be a lot of rails rusting in the long grass.  I doubt places like Charleville or Longreach will even survive.

[Golliwog]

I get that they're interested in bulk commodities because there's a lot of money to be made from it, but whats going to happen in the future as the coal mines finish mining and there's little to no coal left (I know it won't happen for a while, but it's still an eventuality for any finite resource)? I would have thought some investment (even if it's small) in general freight and other freight (livestock/grain/etc) would make sense to keep it going as these are the things that will pretty much always exist.

[somebody]

I get that they're interested in bulk commodities because there's a lot of money to be made from it, but whats going to happen in the future as the coal mines finish mining and there's little to no coal left (I know it won't happen for a while, but it's still an eventuality for any finite resource)? I would have thought some investment (even if it's small) in general freight and other freight (livestock/grain/etc) would make sense to keep it going as these are the things that will pretty much always exist.

There's a couple of hundred years of coal left in the world.

[Golliwog]

I get that they're interested in bulk commodities because there's a lot of money to be made from it, but whats going to happen in the future as the coal mines finish mining and there's little to no coal left (I know it won't happen for a while, but it's still an eventuality for any finite resource)? I would have thought some investment (even if it's small) in general freight and other freight (livestock/grain/etc) would make sense to keep it going as these are the things that will pretty much always exist.

There's a couple of hundred years of coal left in the world.

I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert, but how much of this is in QLD, and what about the talk from BHP about it not currently being economical to start new coal mines/expand mines in QLD/Australia?

My main point is though that mining is something that is always going to be fairly exposed to market forces in terms of mineral prices, and the cost of extracting it from different locations around the world, and the grade of the material being extracted. Comparatively, general freight is always going to exist so long as towns/cities and farms exist. To me at least, it would make sense to develop general freight as a consistent baseline return for the company, even though it most likely won't provide as big a bang for buck as minerals would.

[somebody]

QLD is already a big player in coal mining.  Bigger than NSW.  Probably bigger than the rest of the country combined.