Tasmania’s forestry shutdown

Matthew Franklin, Chief political correspondent Australian
AUSTRALIA’s forestry industry will cease production for the next 10 days, with timber companies, stung by the global recession, freezing operations to avoid widespread redundancies. The increasing onslaught of the slowdown has sparked unprecedented co-operation, with unions and employers working together to protect jobs and ride out the downturn. The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and the National Association of Forest Industries revealed yesterday that tens of thousands of workers would bring forward their Christmas holiday entitlements to turn the Easter break into a 10-day industry-wide shutdown. They said employers and their workers had made a pact to work together, hoping that if job losses could be avoided they would be better placed to profit from the eventual economic recovery. “The amount of extra leave being taken around Easter is unprecedented,” CFMEU forestry division secretary Michael O’Connor told The Australian yesterday. “In Tasmania, nearly every forestry operation and processing operation in timber is basically on a 10-day shut. It’s also been reported to me that in the few places where they haven’t done that people are moving to four-day weeks with annual leave being used for the fifth day.” Read more here