Bakery workers reject pay cuts

BY JOHN NEBAUER

ADELAIDE — Workers at Balfours Bakery have rejected an invitation to have their wages cut by management, in a vote on September 19.

Management had asked staff to accept a pay cut of 76 cents an hour and other measures, including replacing double time penalty rates with time and a half rates. Workers estimate the proposed changes would leave them with $80 less each week.

A company document issued on September 11 claimed, "Balfours is facing serious financial difficulties at present". Its chief executive, Malcolm Gibbons, said, "What is at stake is the long-term viability of this great South Australian business", but declined to mention whether he and his managers would also accept reductions in their salary packages.

A spokesperson for the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, Mark Hulme, told the Adelaide Advertiser that the workers' refusal to take pay cuts shouldn't adversely affect the company.

Balfours, South Australia's largest bakery, was taken over by a Sydney-based consortium in 1996, when it was placed into receivership with debts of more than $11 million. In 1998-99, the company's annual turnover was more than $60 million, and in January it bought a bakery in NSW.

From GLW issue 422