14 July 2013

Att: All General and Political reporters Battle lines - ETU steps up campaign against LNPs job cuts and privatisation ETU Delegates from around the state fly into Brisbane for crisis meeting Electrical Trades Union delegates from around Queensland will meet in Brisbane today, as the unions campaign against the Newman Governments job cuts and privatisation ramps up. ETU State Secretary Peter Simpson said the Governments policies were a betrayal of their election promises, a kick in the guts for regional communities and a death knell for remote communities. They are outsourcing 33 remote generation community power stations and the jobs they support, they are proposing to close more than 30 regional depots and we now have the Stanwell decision where 58 jobs will be lost at Tarong in the South Burnett, enough is enough We will fight for every job, we have received massive support from some of the effected communities and we will be asking them to join with us to fight back. We need a regional revolt, we will be calling on people to do simple things like write to their local MP, attend a rally, sign a petition or write to their newspapers to say enough is enough of the LNP ripping the heart out of our communities We will not stand back and see communities decimated, this is not just about electricity jobs and assets, this is about families, schools, businesses and health facilities, this LNP Government must be held to account They continue to hide behind their puppet boards, saying the boards make the decisions, well we know for a fact they are directing boards to cut costs and right size their organisations, FOI information received earlier this year shows quite clearly Government ministers directed state owned electricity providers Ergon and Energex to cut costs by 10% The buck stops with the LNP The meeting will take place at the ETUs Brisbane Office at 41 Peel St, South Brisbane For further information please contact Stuart Traill (State Organiser) 0430 072 049 Jason Young (State Organiser) 0419 721 044 Peter Simpson (State Secretary) 0414 867 188 Andrew Irvine (Media) 0448 633 858