VIC: Workers take shares in company to fight off the sack

AAP General News (Australia)
04-01-1999
VIC: Workers take shares in company to fight off the sack

MELBOURNE, April 1 AAP - Geelong cement workers will fight looming retrenchments at an
Adelaide shareholders' meeting after buying stocks in the company seeking to sack them.

Adelaide Brighton, owners of the Geelong Cement works, told 150 workers this week they
would lose their jobs following a merger with Britain's number two cement maker, Rugby PLC.

Premier Jeff Kennett, in Geelong to open a textile and fibre manufacturing plant yesterday,
angered 40 cement workers at the function when he told them there was nothing he could do to
save their jobs.

"We have got to deal with the reality of the situation. I don't like it; you don't like it;
but there is nothing I can do to change what the company has decided," he said.

State Labor leader Steve Bracks said he would seek a meeting with Geelong Cement and
explore every opportunity to keep the plant open.

He has also asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to investigate whether
the closure was anti-competitive.

Australian Workers Union state secretary Bill Shorten accused Mr Kennett of "selling out
Geelong".

"He's already given up after one phone call," Mr Shorten said.

"Well, we've all become shareholders in Adelaide Brighton, and we're going to Adelaide for
their extraordinary meeting, which needs to approve the merger.

"The argument will be taken right to the shareholders and we'll see if they are able to
approve this with the workers facing unemployment staring them in the face," he said.

Geelong Mayor Ken Jarvis also came under fire from the workers for saying on Monday that
the plant's closure was a mixed blessing because while it would mean job losses, it also
improved the local environment.

AAP ag/er/gl/pjb/gl

KEYWORD: CEMENT DAYLEAD

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