The World Socialist Web Site reports
[October 3], Toyota wound up production at its plant in Altona, a working-class suburb in southwest Melbourne. The closure marks the end of the company's 54-year Australian manufacturing operation. The shutdown left 2,700 workers unemployed, and threatens tens of thousands more jobs in the car components industry.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), which covers car workers, previously oversaw the shutdown of Ford's production in Melbourne and Geelong in October last year, eliminating the 600 remaining jobs. Once Holden closes its operation in South Australia, in less than three weeks, a further 944 workers will be left unemployed, and car production will cease in Australia.
A University of Adelaide study in 2014 predicted this would result in the destruction of some 200,000 jobs across the country.
The string of shutdowns is an indictment of successive Labor governments, at the state and federal level, and the trade unions. Having imposed round after round of sackings, speed-ups and cuts to conditions, the unions, functioning as an industrial police force of the car corporations, have done everything they can to ensure "orderly closures".
[...] after extracting vast profits from their employees, Ford, Toyota, and Holden, have decided their Australian operations are not providing a sufficient return for their ultra-wealthy shareholders. They have thus ended manufacturing, wreaking social havoc on devastated working-class communities.
This is part of a global restructuring by the major car producers, aimed at taking advantage of poverty-level wages and economies of scale in Asian manufacturing hubs. Workers in every part of the world, from Asia and the US and Europe, are paying the price.
[...] The unions, taking their nationalist and pro-capitalist program to its logical conclusion, support this global race to the bottom, helping companies pit workers against each other along national lines. The AMWU, working with Toyota and the major companies, drove down wages and conditions over the past 20 years, seeking to ensure Australian car manufacturing was "internationally competitive".
[...] This is part of a broader corporate offensive against jobs, wages, and conditions, following the collapse of the mining boom, amid a deepening crisis of Australian capitalism. Massive job cuts have been imposed in the energy sector, telecommunications, and virtually every other industry.
A Roy Morgan survey in August found that more than 10 percent of the national workforce, more than 1.2 million people, were out of work.
(Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Monday October 09 2017, @07:57PM (7 children)
Tesla, who's looking to open 3 or 4 new gigafactories in the next two years. Not having to build one from the ground up might help out.
(Score: 4, Funny) by frojack on Monday October 09 2017, @08:33PM (5 children)
That would never work, because Tesla relies on solar powered factories, and we know how little sunshine is available in Australia.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday October 09 2017, @09:00PM (1 child)
Well, it does depend on whether today's giant brush fire covers the sun, and deposits ash on your panels, which you don't have water to wash.
Better go with coal, I'd say. Bonus: It also keeps the drop bears away.
Also: has anyone ever studied the effects of the various Australian poisons and venom on battery efficiency, and worker productivity?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @09:07PM
I think they did. If I remember well, they couldn't find any difference.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @09:04PM (1 child)
Yeah, naaah... We still have plenty of hydropower, OzLand centre is full of it.
We don't have is uranium reserves, though.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:34AM
(Score: 2) by n1 on Tuesday October 10 2017, @03:56PM
First they should probably finish building the original gigafactory, that isn't even 50% complete yet...
then they still need to save Puerto Rico and work out how to make more than 3 'mass market' cars per day..
the current gigafactory does not rely on solar either, they get cheap energy from the Nevada grid with plans to go solar some day...
and then they also need to find the next few billions to pay for it all on top of the 20bn in liabilities they have today, before they really start work on the semi, 2nd m3 production line, actually delivering their solar roof to non insiders...
still waiting on that billions of revenue from powerwalls that was promised 2 years ago, with off the hook demand... they probably won't even make 50m this year, but still found hundreds of units for PR despite all that demand and barely any installed
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 09 2017, @10:12PM
How much subsidy does Aussie government have in mind?