Communities across the Goulburn Valley have been left reeling following the shock announcement that the Bega Cheese factory in Strathmerton will close.

In a statement to employees and the ASX on Tuesday, May 6, the Bega Group said it would be closing its Strathmerton factory in mid-2026, citing cost savings per year of $30 million by consolidating processing and packaging operations to its site in Bega, NSW.

The news came as a shock to Maree Hodgson, who has counted 31 years of working at the dairy factory.

“I think everybody’s jaws hit the floor in the room, including middle and upper management. No-one seemed to have been aware of it, there’d been no rumours, nothing,” the Numurkah resident said.

Over 300 employees, many of whom live across the Goulburn Valley, are set to lose their jobs in the phased closure, which Bega Group chief executive Pete Findlay said would likely start at the end of this calendar year.

Ms Hodgson, 63, had plans to retire in the next couple of years, but those have now changed.

While the closure means she will have to bring her plans forward, Ms Hodgson said some of her colleagues at the Bega factory faced even more uncertainty over their futures.

One of those colleagues, who is pregnant, has just gone on maternity leave after purchasing a house.

“Some are quite calm about it, but I’m not sure whether it’s sunk in properly, you know, that this is going to happen,” said Ms Hodgson, who is also a United Workers Union delegate.

“Some are just so distressed because they’re young, they’ve got young families.

“Your head just starts running at 100 miles an hour. You’ve got all sorts of thoughts, like when, what, why — all that stuff running through your head.”

Despite the shock of the announcement, Ms Hodgson said she had been treated well by the company.

“They’ve been very helpful. They’ve got all the services coming in, we’ve got counselling services if people require it. I can’t really say, other than that they’re shutting the place, that they’re doing anything wrong,” she said.

Ms Hodgson said she and her colleagues were still awaiting further information on what would come next for them.

Meanwhile, the long-term future of Strathmerton itself has been thrown into question amid declining student enrolments at the local primary school.

Strathmerton Primary School principal Joanne Paton, who has held the top role at the school for almost three years, said she was devastated for the families affected by the factory’s closure.

“I was worried, straight away, for the future of the school, the future of the town, and the future of the external towns, too,” she said.

“When I first started here, we had 110 children enrolled. And now we’re down to 58. And with the closure of Bega, that’s four families I know who work there who I’m worried about — the fact they’ll have to relocate to find employment somewhere else and therefore bring our numbers down even more.”

The school employs a number of external support staff, including a psychologist, speech pathologist and occupational therapist.

If the closure of the factory goes ahead, Ms Paton is concerned a drop in school funding will mean it will need to reduce numbers across both its teaching and support staff.

Fewer staff means that the school would have to increase its class sizes, which Ms Paton said were currently small.

“They’re probably going to be higher because we just wouldn’t have the money to have those smaller class sizes, like we do at the moment,” she said.

Meanwhile, Mr Findlay said the Bega Group would begin discussions with employees on potential redeployment across its other factories, such as those in Tatura and Bega.

“We’d like to look at options there, but similarly, if people were going to shift to anywhere in the future, to where one of our other sites are, we would look into that as well,” Mr Findlay said.

But Ms Paton said even if employees chose to work in Tatura, that wouldn’t preserve Strathmerton’s future.

“They’re not going to live here and work in Tatura,” she said.

“It’s too far, they’ll be paying petrol prices and the price of living. They’re not going to drive down there every day. They’ll relocate.”

United Workers Union national dairy co-ordinator Neil Smith said the union’s more than 260 members who worked at the factory were shocked at the announcement.

“In the latest enterprise bargaining agreement negotiations, workers won a community consultation clause,” Mr Smith said.

“So far the company has not kept their end of the bargain and the union expects genuine consultation with the Strathmerton community to occur in good faith.

“Bega needs to stick to the agreement and engage in genuine consultation with workers and the community. And if there is an ability to keep Strathmerton operating as a viable dairy plant, then Bega should be open to that.

“For workers to see their years of devoted service boiled down to a redundancy figure means there will be a lot of very hard kitchen-table conversations over the coming days and weeks.”

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Thursday, 5th December 2024

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