Heinz Wattie’s restructure will have ripple effect, Employers and Manufacturers Association says

Source: Radio New Zealand

A Wattie’s factory employee facing redundancy fears for her and her colleagues’ futures, saying it has been decades since some of them have had to interview for a job.

And the Employers and Manufacturers Association (EMA) believes there will be a ripple effect right across the country if Heinz Wattie’s goes ahead with its major shake-up.

The company wants to shut its plants in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin and stop the production of a number of products, including frozen vegetables.

Kathy Perrin, a forklift driver and E tū union delegate in Christchurch, told Midday Report they were expecting a few redundancies, but not the closure of the entire plant.

“We could see we were a bit heavy on the staff, how many members we had, staff members we had, not just junior members. We could see we were a bit top-heavy and we thought there’d be redundancy, not a plant closure. This is just – it’s traumatising.”

She said many staff had young families and mortgages, while others expected to work for Wattie’s until they reached retirement.

“Even members that are 45, I was talking to one last night and he was saying that, you know, ‘I’d settled in and I was feeling that this was [my job] until I was retirement age.'”

Another said their last job interview was in 1979.

“Everybody needs to come together – the government, the union and the company all need to get together and go, ‘Okay, what assistance are you going to need after the doors are closed?’ … if it’s help with rents, accommodation, mortgages for young families, those things, all those needs… we leave nobody behind, because we can’t be left behind.”

She blamed the proposed closures on the company’s offshore owners, and said they were now facing a future of minimum-wage work.

“The union have been great, they are helping us, they are being fantastic. And local management are being fantastic. This doesn’t come from Christchurch, this doesn’t come from within New Zealand. This is done outside of it.”

‘People will probably miss it’

EMA head of advocacy Alan McDonald was surprised by the news.

“The growers, they’ve got pretty extensive distribution networks, so they will be impacted in some way or form and that’ll ripple out through those communities as well.

“And it’s been a long-standing brand in New Zealand, so people will probably miss it.”

McDonald said the news would be soul-destroying for some whānau.

“In some of those manufacturing businesses and things like the meatworks and stuff and dairy factories, you get multi-generational people working in those areas and those businesses, so it’s pretty tough on a lot of families.”

McDonald said he hoped that some of the 350 staff at risk could be redeployed into the company to lessen the impact, especially on regional communities.

Heinz Wattie’s said further redeployment opportunities would be investigated throughout the course of the year in line with the phased site closures.

It said it would continue to invest in operations, marketing and research and development, to strengthen its resilience and secure long-term growth.

Redundancy packages, career transition and outplacement services, counselling and wellbeing support would be offered to employees.

Concerns over NZ’s food security

A group representing commercial vegetable growers said food security could become a problem if Heinz Wattie’s goes ahead with a proposal to shut down three factories.

Process Vegetables chair David Hadfield told Morning Report the ripple effect of the closure would hit about 220 Canterbury farmers who produced around 36,000 tonnes of peas every year for the company.

“New Zealand has one of the highest yielding areas for peas and it’s an excellent product. But the problem is, New Zealanders aren’t eating enough vegetables.”

Hadfield said while shocked by the proposal, he was not surprised. He said local production costs were high and it was cheaper to import products.

He warned, however, that if food was not grown locally the country was more vulnerable to things like disrupted shipping routes, such as is happening at the moment because of the conflict in the Middle East.

Hadfield said red tape was also partly to blame for the potential closures, and felt regulations in recent years had become burdensome.

Selwyn Mayor Lydia Gliddon wanted clarity on how Canterbury growers would be affected by the proposal. She said the news came as a surprise and she had more questions than answers.

She said it was unclear whether local growers would lose their contracts entirely.

Gliddon said it did not make financial sense to ship produce to the remaining factory in Hastings for processing.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand