AUT: P&O vows to slash dock jobs

[pmargin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Profit Margin)]

>>From The Australian, at:
>http://www.theaustralian.com.au/index.asp?URL=3D/national/4320429.htm
>
>P&O vows to slash dock jobs
>By SID MARRIS
>
>14jan99
>
>THE country's largest stevedore, P&O Ports, intends to slash its
>1300-strong workforce by 40 per cent, threatening to overload the Howard
>Government's $250 million taxpayer-backed redundancy fund.
>
>The size of the cuts puts the foreign-owned company on a collision course
>with militant Maritime Union of Australia officials, who have warned of
>industrial action.
>
>After rival Patrick lost about $58 million in its spectacular bid to halve
>its workforce to 700, P&O has told the Howard Government it would like to
>cut its own staff to about 780. If successful, stevedoring levels will have
>been slashed from 10,000 in the 1980s to 3500 at the end of the Hawke
>government reforms, to just under 1500.
>
>The projected figures, kept under wraps by P&O, are likely to inflame MUA
>officials, who are at loggerheads internally over the future of the union.
>Declining membership is expected to reduce the numbers of union officials,
>with speculation as many as 10 may go.
>
>Industry sources said the union and P&O had reached a politically saleable
>compromise target of working "towards" one worker per piece of machinery.
>
>However, Transport Minister John Anderson told parliament last month the
>Government would not baulk from a December 31 deadline for companies to lay
>out their job cuts =82 prompting P&O to set the target.
>
>It is understood the figure has caused the Department of Transport to
>review its targets for the Government-backed redundancy fund, which
>provides $250 million to stevedores in return for an industry levy.
>
>P&O managing director Richard Hein would not confirm the figures, but
>conceded the company was suffering a cost disadvantage to Patrick.
>
>He said there was no comparison with Patrick's negotiation after its
>initial bid to replace its unionised workforce with farmer-backed non-union
>workers early last year.
>
>Mr Hein said P&O was not seeking the same level of outsourcing for
>maintenance and other non-core functions.
>
>MUA central Sydney branch secretary Jim Donovan said the Patrick experience
>had cast a shadow over the safety of the practice of one man per machine on
>a 12-hour shift, as conducted by Patrick. He said he was under "no
>illusions" there had to be change, but indicated the union would consider
>its options for industrial action as laid out by the
>Federal Government's law.
>
>"But if they think they want those sort of levels, they are in for a rude
>shock," he said.
>
>"If there is a reduction of labour, there has got to be, commensurate with
>that, conditions to make sure it doesn't harm in any way the health or
>wellbeing of the members."
>
>The Sydney branch has resisted changes introduced by Patrick, most recently
>refusing to work on New Year's Eve, despite an agreement signed in October.
>
>




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