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Holden plant workers stood down over supply shortage


Holden has idled its Elizabeth car assembly line and stood down 1500 workers after a technical fault at the company that supplies seats for the Commodore and Cruze.

About 1500 workers have been told not to turn up to work on Wednesday while the fault at the seat supplier is fixed.

The company expects production will resume on Thursday, however workers have been told to listen to the radio or check their email for updates.

“A technical issue with a major supplier has impacted availability of critical parts and therefore vehicle production,” said Holden spokesman Sean Poppitt. “Our aim is to have production return to normal on Thursday.”

A technical issue with a major supplier has impacted availability of critical parts and therefore vehicle production

The supplier at the centre of the drama is understood to be Futuris, with factories in Adelaide in Melbourne.

Ford Australia says its Broadmeadows factory, which makes the Falcon sedan and Territory SUV, is not affected by the supplier shutdown.

Australia’s biggest car factory, the Toyota site in Altona, which makes the Camry, is also unaffected by the supplier’s seat shortage.

The Holden shutdown comes as the car maker is about to make 270 factory workers redundant by the end of this month.

Staff numbers will fall from 1530 production line workers to 1260 as a result of the cutbacks, and vehicle production will drop from 290 cars per day to 240 cars per day from May 25, when the redundancies are due to take place.

“We’re hoping the majority of the redundancies will be on a voluntary basis, that will be our first priority,” Mr Poppitt said at the time of the announcement.

Holden has not ruled out further redundancies later this year.

“As difficult as this process is, the contraction of the manufacturing will happen on a sliding scale,” he said. “One of our priorities is to not release everyone onto the job market at the same time.”

So far this year sales of the Holden Commodore are down by 17 per cent and deliveries of the Cruze small car are down by11 per cent in a market that has just posted the strongest first three months on record.