A Toyota worker made redundant three years ago says Prime Minister Tony Abbott should “think very carefully” about new jobs for workers hit by the closure of Toyota’s Altona manufacturing plant in 2017.
Former union shop steward Fadi Hassan told The Weekly he was still out of work three years after being made redundant.
“Mr Abbott, he’d better think very carefully how he’s going to find jobs for all these people,” he said.
“I am 50 years old and nobody wants to take me, you know.
“I have no disability, I have no sickness, I don’t even have blood pressure, and I can’t find a job.”
Mr Hassan’s comments were echoed by community leaders, who expressed their disappointment at the federal government’s inability to save the plant, which is one of the west’s biggest employers.
Hobsons Bay councillor Luba Grigorovitch, who heads a Victorian union, posted on Facebook that “by his own admission, Tony Abbott couldn’t answer the phone when Toyota rang as he was too busy announcing the anti-union witch-hunt.”
Hobsons Bay mayor Sandra Wilson said the council was committed to the long-term economic success of the city.
“There are many opportunities for new investment, diversification and the creation of new jobs,” she said.
Toyota Australia president and chief executive Max Yasuda said on Monday that 2500 workers directly involved in manufacturing would be impacted when the plant stopped building cars in Australia at the end of 2017.
The plant has been building cars in Australia since 1963.
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union organiser Darren Dwyer said 200,000 jobs could be affected.
He said the closure became inevitable after previous departure announcements by Ford and Holden.
“That supplier base can’t really support one company,” he said. “And that was really probably the end of it.
“This was the last one. The industry’s gone now.”
The Weekly asked Toyota global president and chief executive Akio Toyoda his thoughts on union claims that 200,000 people could be affected by Toyota’s decision.
“First of all, when I think of what kind of anxieties that our employees may have hearing this decision about their future, it is extremely heartbreaking,” he said.
“Because of that I did want to come here directly for myself and to speak with my own words directly to our people.
“Therefore, when we knew when this decision was going to be made, even though it was a short lead time, I had made arrangements to prioritise being here.”
