Jobs Fears As Mill Falls On Lean Times
The Age
Saturday February 19, 2000
Bridgewater on Loddon is the kind of town where everyone really does know your name; a traditional sort of place where neighbors is not just the name of a prime-time TV show, more a pattern of living.
``There's a great sense of community," said Mr Colin Kirkby, who runs the picturesque general store.
``If some poor bugger dies there's always some bugger there to pick up the pieces and take a cake up."
But this sleepy town, population 304, near Bendigo, received a rude wake-up call this week when its largest employer, the flour and rice mill Water Wheel Holdings, went into voluntary administration.
For about two years, locals say, there were rumors that all was not right at the mill, which was started in 1873 beside the river Loddon.
Mr Glen Portinari, a casual laborer at the mill for nearly two years, heard the talk but never took it seriously. He liked his job and the bosses, he said, were decent.
But he paid more attention just before Christmas when he and other casuals were laid off. There was a reprieve at the end of January when they were offered more work, so the announcement that insolvency experts had been called in came as an unwelcome surprise.
With talk of closure hanging over the mill, Mr Portinari faces a period of uncertainty. ``Last night I thought to myself `what am I going to do?' I'm looking for another job straight away," he said.
Elsewhere in this little community the news had been less surprising; the bush telegraph had done its work in the usual way.
A fourth-generation wheat farmer said several growers had stopped supplying grain to the mill because of delays in getting paid.
``The mill was good up until a couple of years ago," the farmer said.
The mill's links with the entrepreneur, Mr John Elliott, a major shareholder and board member who had grand plans of turning the company into a big player in the rice industry, also irks locals.
The National Union of Workers, which represents many of the 100 or so workers involved, remains hopeful that the company can be restructured and remain viable.
The bottom line, says the union secretary, Mr Charlie Donnelly, is that ``there ain't any other jobs up there".
© 2000 The Age