Supermarket giants, Woolworths have been approached by Cricket Australia to help them find temporary jobs for its staff. This is because of the current economic crisis that has arisen due to the corona virus pandemic putting a halt to all activities. As a result, all the staff has been laid off until June.
To make things worse, presently, Cricket Australia is also not eligible for the Job keeper support program of the government. This is because they haven’t lost any major revenue streams because of the matches being canceled.
The chief executive, Kevin Roberts in an interview with SEN radio was heard saying, “I wrote to Brad Banducci the CEO of Woolworths given that Woolworths is among organizations that need more staff at the moment.”
He also said that they have been working with other organizations having a temporary need for people.
Also, Roberts talked about the plan of conducting a home international season played without any crowd. This will help generate a revenue of around 40-50 million Australian dollars.
On the other hand, he also said that layoffs are always difficult choices to make and he hates to be a part of something like that. But at the same time, they are inevitable when such situations arise. However, Cricket Australia has been very supportive about the whole thing and trying its best to arrange temporary jobs for the laid-off staff.
When asked about the unequal pay cuts for executives and working staff, Roberts defended it by stating that it completely depends upon how much work is being done presently. The Cricket Australia chief was also asked about the reservations of the state associations and the cricketers association regarding the measures taken. On which he said that it is not possible to keep everyone happy all the time, but with their present style of working most of the people are comfortable.
Lastly, he added that they have been working in an open and orderly fashion with every involved organization. To sum it up in cricketing terms, all the focus is on how to face the next ball.
