Zoos Victoria staff raise safety concerns over restructuring

A restructuring process at Zoos Victoria has triggered safety concerns among staff regarding the reduction of emergency and firearm response teams. Employees fear that fewer armed personnel could compromise the safety of both workers and the 2.7 million annual visitors in the event of an animal escape or other crisis.

The restructuring aims to achieve $7.7 million in savings through 54 redundancies, representing approximately 5 per cent of the workforce. While management initially stated that frontline roles would not be affected, the Community and Public Sector Union has challenged the clarity of that definition, claiming no part of the organization will remain unaffected.

In addition to job security concerns, the organization’s workplace watchdog recently issued an improvement notice regarding the handling of the redundancy process and the management of psychosocial hazards. Management has reportedly complied with orders to address these hazards, including implementing measures for incident monitoring.