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Geelong wool plant closure ends lockout
2 Oct 2003
German firm Bremer Woll-Kammerei, the world's second largest wool processing company, has ended the five-month lockout at Geelong Wool Combing in Lara, Victoria, by announcing the plant will close next week. GWC wanted to remove weekend penalty rates and change to a five-day-a-week operation to offset the slump in demand for wool. But the plant's 100 workers rejected the proposal and have been locked out since May 1, 2003.
Workers at Austops, another Bremer Woll-Kammerei subsidiary, at Parkes in NSW, accepted a pay cut in 2002 to keep Austops in the black. Geelong Wool Combing director Leigh Schmitt said he could not understand why the NSW branch of the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union had agreed to more flexible working conditions to help the company through the downturn, but the Victorian branch had not.
Mr Schmitt said GWC would not have been able to guarantee the workers' jobs even if they had accepted the proposed changes, but the company would have had a better chance if an agreement had been reached months ago.
The Victorian Government and the City of Greater Geelong have both attempted to break the deadlock.
The Age, 2/10/03.
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