Crm Closure Talks Off To A 'good Start'

Illawarra Mercury

Thursday August 23, 2007

By PAUL McINERNEY

ABOUT 90 workers at BlueScope Steel's CRM Service Centre met company management yesterday in the first of an expected series of meetings to thrash out redundancy and retraining procedures.

BlueScope Steel has announced it will close the Port Kembla plant - where the first coil of Colorbond was rolled out 40 years ago - within two years, and invest in new plant and equipment in western Sydney.

Australian Workers Union organiser Dave Hancock said employees at the plant were hoping the negotiations would run more smoothly than those that occurred following the closure of the tin mill earlier this year.

"The unions and the company have been in and out of the Industrial Relations Commission over the tin mill closure, but it was clear yesterday neither CRM management nor the workers wanted to go down that path," Mr Hancock said.

"Today's meeting was a very good start with a lot of feedback and the company has signalled that retraining programs would start immediately for workers who did not seek voluntary redundancy.

"Our real concern remains that the company may dig its heels in over job swaps inside the steelworks like it did with the tin mill and I think that remains a key stumbling block."

Mr Hancock said 20 employees would be affected in November when the paint line moves from seven days' continuous operation to five days' production.

Yesterday afternoon a BlueScope Steel spokesperson said: "We had a first meeting of our employee discussion group today and that went well.

"We are committed to working closely with our employees, to provide them with care and support and to work through their concerns."