Sacked Staff Say Labs Are Vital
The Age
Thursday August 17, 1995
When the faxed list of those to lose their jobs at the Benalla veterinary laboratory arrived on Friday, Judith Wilkie was almost relieved to see her name.
Until then, Friday would have been the third time workers at the Benalla lab left for the weekend not knowing if they had a job to come back to on Monday. The faxed list told them 14 of the lab's 20 staff were sacked.
Yesterday, at a farm in Warrenbayne, south of Benalla, a highly qualified group had gathered: Ms Wilkie, a senior veterinary pathologist; Mr David Paynter, with 20 years of experience in animal disease testing and the former manager of the lab; and Ms Robyn Paynter, a former technical officer at the lab.
What this group of animal scientists wants to do now is buy back the farm.
In the form letter advising staff they had been made redundant, the lab's owners, Centaur International, said that it had been necessary for the company to have ``a radical restructure in order to continue". In the Benalla and Bendigo labs this meant about 70 per cent of jobs were cut.
The network of four country vet labs which perform postmortems and pathology tests on sick or dead animals, monitoring animals' health and acting as an early warning on the spread of animal disease was privatised last year.
Last week, after months of uncertainty about their future, the State Government said business had dropped off at two of the labs and that it had given the owners a package of financial aid. The Government has blamed the problems at the labs on a lack of confidence in the country areas.
But the former staff say there has been no drop in business, that in fact business has improved, and that Centaur's problems are due to a top-heavy, city-based management structure and a lack of experience in this specialised area.
David Paynter says the Benalla lab last year did $600,000 worth of business compared to about $380,000 two years ago.
The group of former lab staff argue they could take over and run the lab, provided they get the same help Centaur has had from the Government.
They say their plan would save local jobs and keep open a resource vital to country Victoria. They have also warned that the reduction of services leaves northern Victoria dangerously exposed to a disease outbreak.
The Government yesterday said it would not talk about a management takeover while Centaur was still in business.
© 1995 The Age