EDI tender withdrawal threatens local jobs

A recent decision from a local train manufacturer to pull out of a Queensland Rail tender to build new train units will threaten more than 1000 Australian jobs.

"The news that Downer EDI have today decided to pull out of a global tender to provide Queensland Rail with 200 three-car sets is both devastating and disappointing," Manufacturing Minister Jan Jarratt told state parliament.

She said Downer EDI had long provided manufacturing capacity for rolling stock in Queensland.

"This company received the backing of the state with the award of the $189 million Tilt Train contract to ensure they could maintain their workforce and retain a strong position in order to compete for the Queensland Rail rolling stock contract. Unfortunately they have decided not to back their own workforce and to back out," she said.

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union state secretary Andrew Dettmer said 1000 jobs - the vast majority in Queensland - were now under threat.

"The union has spent the last year working with this company to ensure this train manufacturing contract has the best chance possible of going to its Maryborough factory," Dettmer said in a statement.

"Now, they've stunned us all by announcing in an email they're pulling out of the race and citing onerous terms and conditions attached to the tender process," he said.

Dettmer said none of the other companies tendering, most of them international, had pulled out and so apparently had no issues with the contract conditions.

The Queensland government announced in October last year it would invest $189 million to buy another Tilt Train and upgrade its existing two.

The work was to be carried out at Maryborough's Downer EDI facility, supporting 800 direct and indirect jobs in that region.

It was also meant to support the company so that it could compete for a future lucrative QR contract, Jarratt said.

Read more here.