Cadbury throws out the manual jobs

FORTY Tasmanian workers will lose their jobs at the Claremont factory because chocolate maker Cadbury wants to cut out manual handling of Flake and Twirl bars.

The multinational company will invest $20 million to automate the processes of bar making and wrapping, which will halve the cost of production.

Cadbury has been making chocolate in Tasmania for nearly 100 years. It produces about 50,000 tonnes a year.

The move is part of a $185 million process of automation that has reduced jobs at Claremont from 600 in 2013 to 360 by the time the latest redundancies are completed.

Cadbury Claremont site manager Ross Coleman said employees manually placed Flake and Twirl bars on to a line to be wrapped.

“The new equipment will connect and automate the bar making and wrapping line, which will increase capacity and remove some of these repetitive motion activities,” he said.

Mr Coleman said Flake and Twirl products required significant efficiencies to ensure the company could compete globally and overcome some of the challenges associated with Australian production such as a distant location, low domestic growth and rising costs of freight and other inputs.

“For Flake and Twirl, we need to halve costs so that we truly compete for export on a global scale and this investment announcement is about helping us do that,” he said.

Treasurer Peter Gutwein said the impending job losses were disappointing, but the investment indicated the company would be around for the long term.

Mr Gutwein said the Department of State Growth skills unit would engage with the people affected to help them find work elsewhere.

Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union secretary John Short said there would be a lengthy consultation, with job losses probably in December or early next year.

He said in living memory jobs had reduced from 1500 to the present 400.

“This is a place where many generations of workers have worked, so what is worrying is that there is not going to be those jobs available for the next generation,” he said.

“We are talking about people’s livelihoods. Automation usually does mean some jobs are lost, but I think we are all shocked about the number of job losses this will create.”

He said it was hoped a good percentage of the losses could be voluntary redundancies.

Denison MP Andrew Wilkie said the jobs losses came on top of 50 jobs cut last year and 80 in 2015.

“Yes, there’s new investment. Yes, Cadbury must remain competitive. And yes, the factory remains open when similar plants like Dunedin in New Zealand are closing,” he said. “But Claremont is different and everyone in the community, including me as their federal political representative, expect and need the disappointments and job losses to stop.”

Mr Wilkie said a $16 million promise to Cadbury by former prime minister Tony Abbott in 2013 was used to help win seats in Bass, Braddon and Lyons.

Greens leader Cassy O’Connor said loyal and dedicated workers were the victims of accelerating industry automation.

“Cadbury ... have become no different from any other profit-driven, multinational corporation,” she said.

“Workers are increasingly becoming expendable because machines don’t need decent pay, holidays or sick leave.”

Labor spokeswoman for employment, training and skills development Anita Dow said Cadbury needed to support workers to find new employment opportunities.

A Cadbury spokeswoman said the company’s push to realise efficiencies in the past five years meant the company was nearing best-in-class conversion cost for some products.

This is a place where many generations of workers have worked, so what is worrying is that there is not going to be those jobs available for the next generation

JOHN SHORT