Allied Mills to cut 45 jobs at their Ballarat Mill

Allied Mills to cut 45 jobs at their Ballarat Mill

Production to be transferred to Kingsgrove and Kensington

Allied Mills have announced plans to shed 45 of the 60 jobs at their Ballarat Mill during 2016 with production to be relocated to Kingsgrove and Kensington.

The Ballarat Courier Newspaper published the following on Friday 13th February.

Iconic manufacturer Allied Mills will decimate its Ballarat workforce by 2016 with the company planning to shed 45 of the 60-odd locally-held positions.

The latest development caps off a miserable month on the local job front after Telstra announced it would axe 78 jobs by April and two companies went into administration.

Allied Mills company secretary Stephanie Vass said the cuts would occur on a “staged basis” over the next 12 months and would include full-time and casual positions.

Ms Vass said the site would remain fully operational despite the skeleton workforce that is expected to remain and the company would look at redeployment opportunities for affected employees.

National Union of Workers south western district organiser Darren Stiles said he understood the company was trying to consolidate its workforce by moving production to Kensington, Victoria, and Kingsgrove, Sydney.

Mr Stiles said many employees in the firing line had spent their entire careers at the historic mill. “Once again full-time jobs will be jeopardised and precarious employment will continue in other factories,” he said. “We’ve got blokes who have been there for 25 years, (it is) unbelievable.” Ballarat Trades Hall secretary Brett Edgington said consumer and business confi dence across Australia was “rock bottom” and job cuts were not unique to Ballarat.

“People are being very cautious with their spending,” said Mr
Edgington, who suggested there was a lot of insecurity
presently surrounding local business.

The news came on the same day a report by the Victorian
Employers’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry painted a grim picture for Victorian businesses’ confidence in 2015.
The quarterly survey, which questioned more than 400
businesses across seven major industry sectors in Australia,
suggested just 18 per cent of Victorian businesses thought
economic conditions would improve in 2015.
The results represent a drop in confidence of 7 per
cent from the previous quarter.

Article written by WILLIAM VALLELY