Further blows to Aust. car industry

Press, 27 October 1982, Page 19

Further blows to Aust. car industry

NZPA Sydney The Australian motor vehicle industry has suffered another severe blow with the effects of the recession biting into the jobs of another 110 employees at the Borg Warner transmission plant at Albury in the south-west of New South Wales.

The employees, including assembly-line workers and tradesmen, have been told of their retrenchments, bringing the total number of Borg Waner staff, to lose their jobs during the past four months to 421.

Earlier in October, the company’s axle plant in Sydney retrenched 130 staff while 181 people were laid off at the Albury factory during September. The New South Wales secretary of the Vehicle Builders’ Union, Mr Joe

Thompson, said that, the figure represented 38 per cent of Borg Warner’s total workforce and further sackings could follow. Talks with Borg Warner management had failed to produce any guarantees that further retrenchments would not follow, Mr Thompson said.

“The situation is very much in the air, it depends on the number of future orders received from the car manufacturers,” he said.

After the Sydney retrenchments, Borg Warner’s general manager (automotive) Mr Malcolm Williams said that the situation had been caused by reduced orders from passenger car assemblers such as Ford, Mitsubishi, Toyota, General Motors, and Nissan. He was also critical of the Federal Government’s motor vehicle policy which, he said, had opened up the Australian car market to foreign components.

The news caps a bleak fortnight for the industry with the Leyland Motor Company . retrenching 130 employees from their two Sydney assembly plants at Enfield and Revesby. The Leyland retrenchments followed a decision by the Federal Government to award a contract for 215 Land-Rovers for the Australian Army to the Japanese Toyota Company.

L.N.C. Industries, a Sydney vehicle importer, will retrench 260 of its staff in spite of reporting a record $12.1 million profit this year. A report in the “Sydney Morning Herald” quoted the group's managing director, Mr D. I. Donaldson, as saying, “Our biggest problem is our cost of labour and pressure on wages.” The lay-offs, which would be across the board among the company’s 2300 workers in all states, were in direct response to union demands for a 38-hour week and higher wages, Mr Donaldson said.

However, Mr Thompson described Mr Donaldson’s claims as “false and malicious.”

The L.N.C. workers still had a 40-hour week, with low over-award payments, Mr Thompson said.

The workers at L.N.C. had not pressed for pay increases and had not had a rise since June when they were given $l4, in line with the rest of the industry, he said.

“In the most recent edition of the company’s own magazine, ‘Transmission,’ L.N.C. management thanks its employees for their co-operation during the record trading year,” said Mr Thompson. “They also go on to point out that the group is expecting an even bigger profit in the year ahead,” he said.