Tuesday January 18, 2010

Today’s 44 redundancies at Tangiwai Sawmill has prompted the union representing workers in the wood industries to call for more action from government to address the issues confronted by the sector.

WPI has reduced its Tangiwai Mill workforce by 80, including today’s 26 voluntary and 18 compulsory redundancies.

This follows the mothballing of its Prime Sawmill in Gisborne and 26 job losses at CHH’s Kawerau Sawmill, both announced late last year.

Robert Reid, General Secretary of the National Distribution Union, said other companies also wanted to meet with the union to discuss scaling back production caused by the economic issues confronted by the industry.

But he said that as the industry laid off workers, the Minister of Forestry was missing in action.

“Many of the industry problems that have been identified to NDU are a result of government macro-economic policy settings, rather than efficiency or productivity issues in the industry itself,” Robert Reid said.

“Given this, we reiterate our call of 16 December for the government to convene to an urgent meeting with industry and unions to see what can be done.”

“The price of raw logs is going up and up, but the price at which New Zealand can sell processed timber is going down. This, together with the high NZ dollar puts the value-added strategy at serious risk.”

“One of New Zealand’s major export industries is in crisis. It is not acceptable for David Carter to sit back. It is time he came off holiday mode, rolled his sleeves up, and addressed the job losses in the industry.”

Robert Reid said that he had written to the Minister today asking him to do this.

ENDS

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