The axing of 120 jobs at a Queensland-based rail factory could be the first of many as companies choose to manufacture in China, the Australian railworkers' union says.

The global company Bradken has closed its coal rail wagon factory near Ipswich, west of Brisbane, after deciding to manufacture in China.

A total of 120 workers have been laid off during the past five months.


Premier Anna Bligh said the government was working with the company to find jobs for those workers.

"We've been working with this company for a number of months to help make them more competitive," Ms Bligh told reporters on Monday.

"Unfortunately they just haven't won contracts."

The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) spokesman Andrew Dettmer says it is hard to compete with China, which has cheaper labor and manufacturing costs.

"The company has decided to close its rail division because it feels rail manufacturing in Australia is no longer economic," Mr Dettmer said.

"That's disturbing to us as we believe the rail industry is the basis of Australia's heavy engineering - the sort of skills and methods that are used in the construction of major refineries like the LNG project."

"I was just with United Group Rail in Townsville on Friday and they've got work to March and that's good but we want there to be more work for rail manufacture in Queensland," Mr Dettmer said.

"Policies (from the federal government) have been working, but they've been labouring under the China-Australia free trade agreement that was negotiated under John Howard's watch."

Another one bites the dust, anyone reading what i have been writing in relation to factories moving offshore???


Every one that closes and moves is jobs that will never be back here again.

10 years time UP will be 10% ppl living in cars on the street mugging ppl for food.

This country is fkd.

Union drones will never wake up that other people`s money is limited, and the ALP "faithfull" will never comprehend that there is a limit to the amount of bungling ad corruption that Australia can carry.