FORMER DSI employees made redundant earlier this year have been given the “cold shoulder” when applying for casual positions with the Lavington plant, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union said.
The secretary of the union’s NSW vehicle division, Sean Morgan, has written to members who are former DSI employees, asking those who want casual employment with the company to register with the union.
Mr Morgan said he would compile a list of those seeking employment and monitor those being rehired to determine if they are ex-employees or not.
“If they are not then the question will be asked of the company as to why they did not re-hire those on our list,” he said.
Mr Morgan said the union had received no official response from DSI at a meeting earlier this month when it asked if there were former employees who were not being considered for jobs.
“I find this reprehensible that these people were shoved out the door with not a red cent except for the money that came from taxpayers,” he said.
“At the end of the day they should have first right of refusal for the casual positions.”
Mr Morgan said he was hoping between 50 and 60 former employees would be put back on the list for casual employment.
“I don’t think that is too unfair to ask. These people were productive employees,” he said.
“With a few others you might find issues such as excessive absenteeism and quite rightly the company should say no.”
Mr Morgan said before the most recent threatened stand-downs as a result of the failed Melbourne company Forgecast, the company had been expecting to offer 65 casual positions.
“We now see forecasts from SsangYong with numbers that will hopefully equate to 100 positions in the new year, when there may be some greater certainty about where the company is going,” he said.
Mr Morgan said the union would seek to enforce the terms of the current enterprise bargaining agreement pertaining to the employment of casual labour if DSI was unable to explain why it would not offer casual positions to its former employees.
“We are asking for equity,” he said.
“The wrong part is that someone who has never worked with DSI can be employed, while former employees with, for want of a better term, extroverted personalities, they have refused to manage.
“We have given them the solution to that, asking our members to get on with the job and not put themselves in the spotlight, but let us manage the situation for them.”
Mr Morgan said he was not seeking a fight with DSI management, particularly at a time when the enterprise bargaining agreement was being renegotiated.
“We will be seeking an entitlement protection clause in the new agreement and people will appreciate why,” he said.
“I can’t imagine the company acceding to the request but I don’t think they want to go through the same situation we had with the redundancies earlier this year.
“I don’t want to revisit another February ever again in my life.”
DSI factory manager Howard Morey did not return calls from The Border Mail and the company has shut down over Christmas.
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