Alcoa Offers Workers More Than 100% Pay Hike if They Will Accept Saudi Arabia Post

To appease Alcoa workers in Geelong who may lose their jobs as the company reviews the viability of its Point Henry aluminium smelter facility, Alcoa has dangled a more than 100 per cent hike compensation package. The big if is conditioned on the workers being posted in Saudi Arabia,

Alcoa is planning to open a new smelter in the Middle Eastern kingdom. Takers of the offer are guaranteed a total compensation package of $190,700 versus the $73,300 current compensation of Geelong-based employees, the Herald Sun reported.

The Saudi Arabia package is broken down into $163,200 annual salary tax free, $27,500 travel allowance and free accommodation. In contrast, the salary of a Geelong employee is only $100,000 on the average which is deducted $26,700 for taxes, leaving the Alcoa worker based in Australia only $73,300 or less than half of what his counterpart in Saudi Arabia would earn.

Despite the high offer of pay to workers, Alcoa said the new smelter in Saudi Arabia would be the world's cheapest and most efficient aluminium producer. At least one Australian manager and his wife are on a pre-commitment tour of the Saudi Arabian Alcoa facility.

Up to 600 Alcoa workers are at a risk of losing their jobs because of the high Australian dollar and weak prices of aluminium in the global market, which led to the ongoing review by Alcoa of the viability of maintaining the Geelong facility.

Reports said many Geelong workers are considering the Saudi Arabia offer. The facility in Ma'aden is expected to go online in 2013.

An Alcoa spokeswoman confirmed that a manager is in the Middle East touring the proposed plant, but said the pay package was different from the reports. She declined to provide figures because the compensation package is confidential.

Despite the 5.1 per cent unemployment rate registered in January, more jobs are being axed throughout Australia across different industries, although manufacturing was hit hard.

Given this situation, it appears that Australian workers - despite the relatively stable and sound national economy - may go the way of Asian and African workers who have for three decades become foreign workers in the Middle East to take on jobs that pay several times over what they earn home.