Yes, that’s right folks… Australian Construction giant, Theiss allegedly has texted more than 100 workers to tell them they were to be made redundant this week. The workers were employed at the Burton Coking Coal Mine of Peabody Energy. And the construction industry is in uproar. The Sydney Morning Herald reported the CFMEU Vice President’s horror at the action…
“We haven’t seen this sort of nonsense since the darkest days of the Howard era.”
The ABC report the CFMEU representative as saying: “We’re absolutely disgusted. We haven’t seen such morally bereft behaviour since John Howard lost power and WorkChoices went with him,” he said.
Thiess has since been reported as apologised for sending the text messages, saying that the use of SMS in this instance to sack people was a mistake.
The Burton Mine’s coking coal production has been downscaled significantly from 2.5 million tonnes to one million tonnes and the staff were told earlier in August that 350 people would be made redundant on the project.
But how would you feel receiving your redundancy by text message?
