Union considering legal action against Sun Pharma for "shameful" actions

Seven Sun Pharma workers were informed they had been made redundant last week in a meeting with their colleagues.

United Workers Union's Godfrey Moase slammed the company for the way it handled the process.

"Sun Pharma have perpetrated one of the most disgraceful redundancy processes I have seen in my many years as a unionist," Mr Moase said.

"Seven Warrnambool and south-west Victorian citizens who gave between four years and 23 years of service to this facility have been treated appallingly in the way they have been thrown on the scrap heap.

"United Workers Union is considering pursuing legal action against the company to show this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated by workers or the community."

Mr Moase said workers were called into a meeting at 6.30am on Wednesday without any forewarning of what was going to happen.

"In that meeting a manager read out, in front of all their colleagues, the workers who would be made redundant," he said.

"As if that's not shameful enough, they even bungled that. A seventh worker whose name had not been read out then got tapped by another manager and told he was being made redundant as well."

Mr Moase said the seven workers were called in the next day for individual 'consultation' meetings of about five minutes duration each, then they were made redundant that same day.

"Sun Pharma was supposed to first seek expressions of interest for voluntary redundancies, but instead moved straight to involuntary redundancies," he said.

"This process is far below what is set out in the enterprise agreement and way, way below the standards expected by the community."

The financial statement for Sun Pharma's Australian operation showed the company lost more than $20 million in the year ending March 2022. A company spokesperson said the redundancies were a reflection of the declining global demand for opiates.

"There's been a steady decrease in the global market for opiate raw material, and a return to the large volumes of pre-2015 is not expected," the spokesperson told The Standard last week.

"These organisational changes are reflective of what is happening in the global opiates market. But the Port Fairy operation continues to be an integral part of Sun Pharmaceutical's farm to pharmacy supply chain across multiple global Sun Pharmaceutical sites.

"Sun Pharmaceutical continues to pursue opportunities to diversify the Port Fairy operation, evidenced in the recent multi-million dollar capital investment in the state-of-the-art medicinal cannabis extraction facility, which is currently being commissioned."

Sun Pharma has been contacted for further comment.

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