Seaholme’s Joe Tanti will finish up at Williamstown’s shipyard next week.
But he fears more for the impact on other Hobsons Bay’s businesses than he does for his own prospects.
The 37-year-old father of two was among 200 workers at BAE Systems who have been told they will lose their jobs before Christmas.
The sheet metal worker has been with the company for more than three years but previously worked there 10 years ago before work dried up and he was first laid off.
Another 150 jobs will be cut early next year, spelling the death of Victoria’s only shipyard.
BAE spokeswoman Kaye Noske confirmed all the shipbuilding jobs would be gone next year if nothing changed, but 200 positions in the administration facilities would remain.
“It’s sad to see the shipyard gone; it’s over 100 years old,” Mr Tanti said. “It’s been there as long as Williamstown has had people in it.
“Apparently they’re still going to have 12 months of mothballing … packing the place up and shutting it down factory by factory.
“I’ve got to go through Christmas, which is the hardest time to get a job. I don’t know what we’re going to do.
“The kids are putting in their orders to Santa, and me and the wife are trying to work out what we can afford to get them and how everything’s going to work out. We’re trying to pay as many bills as we can before Christmas, trying to get everything out of the way so we can make it through until I find a job.”
Mr Tanti said Labor and Liberal had just blamed each other instead of standing up and saving the shipyard by creating more naval contracts.
“It’s not just us who are out of work,” Mr Tanti said. “It’s the lady who runs the Stags Head Hotel; we go there every Friday or Thursday afternoon for a few beers. There are probably 30 or 40 of us in there, but that’s no longer going to happen.
“It’s the guy that owns the little milk bar down the road [where] some guys go buy their lunch or on the way home they’ll grab a pie. That’s going to be a big sufferer out of all of it – the economy, the local area. We don’t know what to do. Once Toyota goes, where’s there to go?”
“You know what, it doesn’t matter who’s fault it is,” he said.
“When the Liberals came in they knew what was going down, they should have acted straight away and we wouldn’t be sitting here now.”
