Union representatives are set to meet with Arnotts Biscuits’ management today, two days after the company revealed that it is closing down its factory in Melbourne’s Burwood.
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Terry Breheny, state secretary for the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers’ Union, has insisted that the representatives would also demand talks with the directors of Arnotts’ US parent Campbell Soup Company, which took over the Australian firm in 1997. “We need to meet the American directors who are the faceless men who made this decision to put 600 workers out of a job,” he said, adding that the terms of the redundancy package are “absolutely outrageous.”
Managing director of Arnott’s, John Doumani, said the decision to close the Burwood factory in September 2002, with the loss of up to 600 jobs, was down to the age and location of the operation. “The factory was built around 50 years ago. The level of investment it needs to cope with modern production requirements would make it uneconomic.”
The closure comes as part of a A$100m overhaul of the company’s Australian operations, a much lamented consequence of corporate globalisation, according to Australian businessman Dick Smith and Alice Oppen, a descendent of the entrepreneurial Arnott family.
The Victorian Government confirmed yesterday that it had offered Arnott’s incentives to maintain its operations. John Brumby, Victorian treasurer, explained that last December Arnott’s was offered “a generous financial package” to keep the factory open, but could not be persuaded.
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By GlobalDataAfter Melbourne-based Lanes Biscuits said that it would not buy out the factory, news emerged last night that another Australian firm could rescue the site. Simon Rowell, managing director of Snack Foods, revealed that he is interested and seeking urgent talks with Treasury officials. “[We do not know] whether or not Arnott’s wants to talk, but it’s certainly something we’d like to explore,” he revealed, adding: “We know that the State Government is keen to keep biscuit manufacturing in Victoria. We are the biggest Australian-owned biscuit company.”
The State Government also commented yesterday that it would negotiate with rival biscuit makers Westons in a bid to keep the factory open.
