GFG Alliance has axed dozens of jobs at the Whyalla steelworks. The company has attributed the job losses to an extended downturn in the steel market globally.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:0048 workers were delivered the devastating news today, their jobs at the wireless steelworks
00:07were gone.
00:08Owner GFG Alliance blaming a prolonged downturn in global steel market conditions, saying
00:14we are taking efficiency steps to reduce our fixed costs.
00:18That will result in a small number of non-frontline staff adjustments.
00:21It is not good news for the community or the steelworks.
00:26They did advise us that those 48 redundancies are from the staff, they're not front line
00:31or blue collar workers.
00:32GFG says the cuts do not affect its steel making.
00:35The unions will meet with the company in the coming week to discuss the situation.
00:40There's a lot of anxious workers at GFG at the moment, they're anxious about their future,
00:45they're anxious about the security of the steelworks into the future.
00:49On Wednesday the ABC revealed several contractors to the steelworks are owed tens of thousands
00:54of dollars by GFG Alliance, according to multiple sources.
00:57In response to that story, GFG said it is working through the steel market downturn
01:02with its employees and contractors.
01:04Speaking before today's job losses were announced, the Premier said he hoped the debts can be
01:09quickly resolved.
01:10There have been a number of instances in the past where contractors and suppliers feel
01:14as though they haven't been paid on time by GFG.
01:17The advice we've received is that those incidents have generally speaking been rectified.
01:23We hope that is what can occur here.
01:25The global slump in steel prices this year has coincided with a major blast furnace malfunction
01:31that knocked the steelworks offline from mid-March to early July.
01:34Everybody would know that GFG would have lost tens of millions of dollars during the blast
01:40furnace closure and that has affected their production.
01:45GFG maintains it's still committed to transitioning the plant to making green iron and steel.
01:53For more UN videos visit www.un.org