A KICK in the guts – that’s what the shutdown of Kiewa’s Murray Goulburn dairy factory feels like to Jim Witt.
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A 10-year veteran at the milk and cheese plant, Mr Witt was among 60 to 70 workers who massed in a lunch room at 8.30am Tuesday.
It was there that they were told the dairy, which began life in 1893 as the Kiewa Butter Factory, was closing.
“It’s like a bit of a kick in the guts, I was a bit shocked really,” Mr Witt, 64, said.
“I feel for the people that are paying off houses and everything like that and young people, the casuals.
“It’s alright for us older people, we get a little bit out of them and can make do for a while.
“But the other people that are paying off houses and things like that, it’s a bit hard, a bit rough.”
Mr Witt said workers were left stunned by the announcement from Murray Goulburn bosses.
“We had our rumours and we thought it would be one or two of the other plants that are away from here because we’ve got a lot of farmers around here and we thought this would probably be the last place to go,” Mr Witt said.
“(We thought) we might get saved, but it didn’t pan out that way.”
Storage and distribution supervisor Andrew Rickey said the closure would cause hardship for families.
“There’s a lot of people here who are husband and wife teams and sons and daughters that work here,” Mr Rickey said.
“It’s going to hurt them a little bit more, when you lose two jobs from the one factory.”
Mr Rickey, who’s been at the Kiewa plant for six years after working for Murray Goulburn in Melbourne, was positive about his own fate.
“I’m not really overly worried too much at the moment,” he said.
“As far as redundancies go, they’ll be offered, so there will be some money there, it’s a matter of just getting out there and looking for another job now I suppose.”
Tangambalanga General Store owner Kristie Cooke said the closure was a shock.
“I’m pretty devastated for the community, it’s going to affect so much of the community with the families involved,” Ms Cooke said.
“It’s just pretty sad.”
Ms Cooke provides lunch orders for the factory, which, with 135 employees, is the biggest employer in the district.
“Being a small community everyone will still try to stick together as much as possible,” she said.
