Queensland nickel: long wait for phone call that ruined a holiday

Nathan Baker was enjoying a family trip when a call came through from a fellow Queensland Nickel worker.

18/01/2016: (L-R) Poppi-Ann, Chase, Nathan, Darrelle, Bradley, Emmalee and Maddisan Baker in Rockhampton. Nathan has just lost his job at the Queensland Nickel refinery in Townsville. Kent Ward/The Australian

Call it the worst holiday ever. ­Father of five Nathan Baker was on the Gold Coast enjoying a trip with his children and wife Darelle, when a phone call from a mate on early Friday morning put a quick stop to the revelry.

Queensland Nickel was letting workers go, and a handful in his team had already been chopped. Had he heard anything?

“We spent the whole day by the phone, waiting for it to call and hoping it wouldn’t,” Mrs Baker told The Australian from the front seat of the family’s Nissan Patrol yesterday en route back to ­Townsville.

But at 3.34pm, Mr Baker’s phone started flashing.

“They told us he was one of the unlucky ones,” she said. “They’d decided to let Nathan go.”

On Monday morning, the family began the 15-hour slog back to Townsville, unsure of what news awaited them at the other end.

“It’s just this feeling of dread,” Mr Baker said about midday as the family passed through the wide streets and heritage architecture of Gympie.

“We don’t know what the payout will be, and we think we’ve calculated it properly, but it’s hard to know exactly until we get back to Townsville and find out what’s going on.”

By the time they’d reached the coastal plains of Hervey Bay, fortunes had taken a southerly turn.

A Facebook page set up by Queensland Nickel employees ­informed them that management’s decision on Monday to put the company into voluntary ­administration meant workers such as Mr Baker would likely not receive redundancy payments, and in the scheme of creditors, they were as far down the list as mice on the floor.

“It’s a kick in the guts,” Mrs Baker told The Australian upon hearing the news.

“It’s official, this is dire straits stuff for us.”

They’ve never been on the dole, nor do they want to be.

“We’re not those sort of ­people,” Mr Baker said.

The couple isn’t alone in the situation, as 237 other Queensland Nickel workers made redundant on Friday navigate their futures in a region already battling steep unemployment figures, and with no certainty whether they’ll ever get a redundancy payout.

While workers argue they have been facing sleepless nights since cracks first started to appear at Clive Palmer’s refinery last year, families of workers and the broader community are now bracing for the potentially disastrous flow-on effects as the future of the business, which provides upstream and downstream employment for more than 3000, hangs in the balance. “It’s not just a refinery we’re talking about here, but an issue that affects a whole community,” said Australian Workers’ Union secretary Cowboy Stockham.

A real estate agent spoke of a region on tenterhooks. “You know there’s going to be a ripple effect, you just don’t know when it will happen,” the agent said.

At 36, Mr Baker is a long-time maintenance operator who had climbed his way up to boiler maker through an adult apprenticeship, and was just one week away from a $9000 pay rise. Losing his job leaves the family, with kids aged from four to 17, unsure how they will pay school fees, rent, or even if they will be able to stay in Townville — the community they love.

Figuring out next steps, how to pay the bills, whether to take a FIFO job, what to do about the family car on the company lease and how much they can afford to spend on school shoes and stationery for the new school term can wait.

For the car trip home at least, their mind is focused on their former employer, Mr Palmer.

“You can tell Clive that we’ll be knocking at his family’s door during dinner time next week when we can’t put food on the table,” Mrs Baker said. “I mean, how could anyone do this to people?”

Mr Baker was more measured, hoping that there’s some way forward in the mire.

“He stood up in front of us years ago and told us that he had put $4 million away for a rainy day ... that he could use it whenever the time needed it. Well, this is the time. This is the rainy day,” he said.