Murray River Pet Food blames fire damage to factory for 16 layoffs

Former Murray River Pet Food employees told The Border Mail the full-time workers were handed redundancy notices on Wednesday morning, a claim verified by the factory owner Staughton Group.

Murray River Pet Food chief executive officer Darren Pike said a fire at the plant on July 25 had crippled the company's dehydration operations and manufacturing capability leading to the forced redundancies.

"Those people that have been made redundant, I feel for them and their families," Mr Pike said. "That was a hard process to go through for everyone involved.

"It's not something that we wanted to do as we absolutely regret it but it was out of our control. It was an accidental fire that has knocked out 30 per cent of our business, we just couldn't keep a full workforce.

"You can't keep 100 per cent of your workforce when 30 per cent of your operation is incapacitated."

The workforce of 100 in March that was reduced to 85 in March now has 69 full-time employees, "which we hope to keep," Mr Pike said.

Albury MP Justin Clancy, who has been involved in negotiations for state government funding to build new production facilities and complete major plant modifications with the plant's owner, Staughton Group, said he had been contacted by some of the workers.

"I have spoken with some impacted by today's announcement," Mr Clancy said on Wednesday. "I have reached out to Regional NSW about support for impacted employees."

Nick Gordon, an area organiser for the United Workers Union in North East Victoria who represents employees at the Howlong plant, confirmed four union members were among the redundancies on Wednesday.

Mr Gordon, who warned in March such redundancies pave the way for casualised work in the sector, said while the number retrenched on Wednesday was 16, "the figure was likely to grow in the future".

"I believe that the Staughton Group are moving from secure full-time jobs to a highly casualised workforce, this started long before this latest round of redundancies," Mr Gordon said.

"I've been looking after that site for members for the past three and a half years and I believe it's increased year on year - when full-timers leave, they just seem to put on more casuals.

"The Staughton Group promote themselves as a very community-minded business. But all that they're doing by casualisation of the workforce is stripping money out of the community.

"This will also cause problems for the company because I think they will struggle to replace the skilled workers they're letting go."

Mr Pike denied Staughton Group was moving towards a casualised workforce and said union suggestions it was "were rubbish".

"We are not trying to casualise our workforce, far from it," he said. "We have to pay extra for a casual workforce because there's loadings, we've got a very solid team of people that we've respected and employed for many, many years and that will continue.

"Our whole role here is to have full-time employees committed to their role and their side of the business. Unfortunately, a big area of the business has suffered and will continue to suffer for 24 to 36 months.

"We're still waiting on the timeline for the whole facility to be rebuilt.

"It's been significantly stressful for the management and the staff and we understand that completely, we accept that. We provide counselling, independent counselling outside of our business which is a paid service by us that any staff member can take during this process."

In December 2021, the Staughton Group received a $3.72 million state government grant to allow the manufacturer to build a new production facility and complete major plant modifications under the state's Regional Job Creation Fund.

At the time the group said the upgrade would create more than 180 new jobs for the region.

An employee of two years who was "tapped on the shoulder" on Wednesday said they didn't see the move coming.

"Both of my supervisors were made redundant in March, then this morning, one by one, we were tapped on the shoulder," the former employee said.

"So there was a group in March, and then another 16 today and the majority of those people who were tapped today live in Howlong.

"They offered me my holiday pay with no leave loading and four weeks on top of that, but the thing that is upsetting us, is that they're currently seeking casual staff in similar positions that have been made redundant.

"I'm not even 30, I've got a mortgage, we just started to get a life, and then this. They did give employees a contact for the job agency that are advertising jobs at a pet food manufacturing place in Howlong on a casual basis.

"So we're all sitting at the Howlong pub - there's about six of us here now, but no doubt there'll be more."

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