news, local-news

As many as 40 workers contracted to work on the National Broadband Network in the Illawarra have been stood down by construction, mining and services company Thiess. The move happens just over a month before Christmas. It is understood the workers were employed by labour firm Work-Pac and were working for Silcar, which had a number of NBN contracts with the former federal government. Illawarra suburbs vanish from NBN maps Thiess was a 50-50 shareholder in Silcar but took full control of the company in July this year. A month later, Silcar had its contract for construction of the NBN extended for a year, a deal believed to have been worth $30 million. A month after that – and just days before the federal election – the company announced that it would cut 250 Silcar jobs in NSW and Queensland. ‘‘Our workforce will always vary through the phases of our contracts, and many of these redundancies are the result of this cycle,’’ Thiess Services executive general manager Richard Kelleway said at the time. Other job losses were the result of the merging of the two businesses. A spokesman for Thiess confirmed the job losses in the region and that they had been working on the NBN. ‘‘Yes, they were engaged on our NBN contract which is winding down,’’ the spokesman said. He added that some of the Illawarra job losses were part of the broader 250 job cuts while others were ‘‘additional’’. ‘‘The wind down in numbers follows the completion of work in the region,’’ the spokesman said. ‘‘The people affected are employed and allocated to us by a labour hire company and are paid a premium for the transient nature of construction projects that have a limited life.’’ South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris said the situation demonstrated two things. ‘‘One, if the federal government pushes ahead with its plans to smash the NBN that it’s going to cost more than just internet speeds, it’s going to cost jobs as well,’’ he said. ‘‘The second is that it also illustrates a very, very insecure form of work that labour hire is. ‘‘That’s why our preference is direct employ on a more permanent basis. People can’t live their lives on the basis of election and re-election of governments.’’

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