Opal Australian Paper said the latest round of job cuts announced today followed a “detailed review of operations”.<\/p>\n
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Opal has announced moret han 80 people will lose their jobs at its Maryvale paper mill. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
“The end of white paper production has significantly changed the operational footprint of the Mill, and the site has been working to right-size its operations as a kraft and recycled paper manufacturer,” the company said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“This has included ongoing fixed cost reductions to align with its reduced footprint.”<\/p>\n
The mill is one of the largest employers in the Latrobe Valley, which has a history of high unemployment stretching back to the privatisation of the state’s coal-fired power industry in the 1990s.<\/p>\n
The ABC understands about 500 people work at the site.<\/p>\n
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Protesters at the Maryvale mill in 2023, used a coffin to symbolise the death of the timber industry. (Kerrin Thomas)<\/p>\n
More recently, it has been hit by the closure of the Hazelwood power station in 2017, resulting in the loss of 900 jobs.<\/p>\n
Opal said it was proposing to make the cuts across “salaried team members and team members covered by the respective Maryvale enterprise agreements”.<\/p>\n
“This number includes previously announced roles that are still in consultation, roles that have not been filled following voluntary departures or the end of fixed-term contracts and voluntary redundancies”.<\/p>\n
In its statement, the company said it suffered “substantial losses due to the Victorian Government’s failure to meet its contractual obligations under the Wood Pulp Agreement”.<\/p>\n
Opal declined to comment beyond what was in its statement.<\/p>\n
The ABC has approached the Victorian government for comment.<\/p>\n
Union says staff shocked by timing<\/p>\n
The ABC has obtained internal company documentation which was sent to the workforce and outlines the positions it plans to axe.<\/p>\n
They include 19 “yard, first aid and fire roles” and 21 positions which have not been replaced following resignations or the expiry of fixed-term contracts.<\/p>\n
The internal document says that staff were advised of these cuts earlier this year.<\/p>\n
The remaining cuts include 19 leadership positions in cleaning, occupational health and safety, building trades and planning and scheduling.<\/p>\n
The Timber, Furnishing and Textiles Union (TFTU) said the union and workforce did not learn about the decision until about 8.40pm Thursday.<\/p>\n
“To say it’s a little bit of a shock this morning for us and for our membership who were informed very late yesterday as well would be, I think an understatement,” union president Denise Campbell-Burns said.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/a56f0a8bffcb5655f825bf017f1e7f50.jpeg\")
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Denise Campbell-Burns says first aid and fire roles will be among the jobs cut at the Maryvale mill. (Supplied: Denise Campbell-Burns)<\/p>\n
She said the union’s members would make up 65 of the proposed cuts.<\/p>\n
“It’s a lot of people to look after, but I think the concern for the union with this announcement is some of the types of jobs that the business thinks that it is able to remove from the site,” Ms Campbell-Burns said.<\/p>\n
“We’re talking about the first aid team, the training and skill development team that makes sure people are signed off to safely do their work, the fire crew, the entirety of the safety department.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A major employer in Victoria’s east has blamed the state government’s failure to supply timber for its decision…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":834472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,438,45450,406420,406419,406421,16763,126681,12654,1782],"class_list":["post-834471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-company","tag-job-cuts","tag-maryvale","tag-opal-australian","tag-paper-mill","tag-redundancies","tag-reflex","tag-timber","tag-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=834471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/834472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=834471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=834471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=834471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}