Four logging trucks blockade Bunnings’ Traralgon store
Loggers and timber workers have had enough with Bunnings’ ban on Victorian native timber, while it imports Merbau decking from the West Papua rainforests and Meranti from Malaysia.
LOGGERS blocked the entrance to Bunnings’ Traralgon store this morning with four massive trucks in a bid to highlight the hypocrisy of the hardware giant’s ban on selling Victorian native forest hardwoods, while importing timber harvested from West Papua and Malaysian rainforests.
One of the trucks carried a poster depicting Victoria’s healthy rainforest, stating “Our Forests are not under threat from harvesting”, next to an image of an orangutan captioned “But ours is”.
The protest was organised by the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union, which is trying to highlight the damage Bunnings’ decision will have on workers and the industry.
Bunnings notified the state’s timber industry earlier this month it would not take any more timber cut from logs supplied by VicForests, due to a Federal Court ruling that VicForests had breached the Code of Practice for Timber Production 2014.
Initial estimates are that Bunnings’ decision will lead to the loss of at least 170 Victorian timber industry jobs.
“Timber workers will not sit back and be pushed around by big-end of town fat cats like
those in Bunnings and Wesfarmers’ head offices,” said CFMEU secretary Michael O’Connor.
Australian Forest Contractors Association general manager Stacey Gardiner said regional Victoria was facing a jobs crisis.
“Bunnings’ shortsighted decision has added to the continued uncertainty in the industry and contractors are bearing the brunt of this,” she said. “(They) must reverse their local timber ban immediately.”
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The CFMEU has warned the protest action “is just a sign of things to come at Bunnings Warehouses across Australia”, if they did not agree to reverse their ban on local timber.
Hundreds of sawmill workers and contractors have already started calling Bunnings’ head office in Hawthorn East demanding a reversal of the ban.
Others are signing an online petition at saveourtimberjobs.cfmeu.org.au
Timber community advocate Felecia Stevenson said Bunnings needed to explain why it has taken a hard-line against local workers, contractors and businesses, “a line which decimates jobs, families and communities and given themselves the green light to import timber from Indonesian rainforests”.
At present, Bunnings sells Malaysian Meranti timber, which is a generic term applied to more than 200 tropical rainforest species belonging to the Shorea genera, more than half of which are listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable.
Bunnings also sells Merbau decking sourced from the jungles of West Papua, which are under the control of the Indonesian military.
Bunnings merchandise director Phil Bishop acknowledge some in the community were concerned, but said the hardware chain only sold a small portion of VicForests’ total harvest.
“We are working closely with affected suppliers to establish transition plans that minimise potential impacts and during this time we’re continuing to accept timber from stock that is already harvested,” he said.
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