Relocation of Auckland textile plant, some redundancies

Media release: FIRST Union
Tuesday June 18, 2013

Closure and relocation of Auckland textile plant, some redundancies

Workers at an Auckland carpet factory are facing disruption this afternoon with the news that their factory will close and jobs will be relocated to another site, with a small number of redundancies.

Cavalier owned Norman Ellison Carpets made an announcement to staff and the NZX this afternoon that operations at their Onehunga tufting plant would cease and be relocated to Cavalier’s Papatoetoe factory.

51 processing workers are affected by the announcement. 45 jobs are expected to be offered at Cavalier’s site in Papatoetoe. The move is expected to take place over the next six months.

Paul Watson, Textiles Secretary for FIRST Union, said that today’s announcement was a further example of rationalising in the carpet manufacturing industry.

It follows last year’s closure of Norman Ellison Carpet’s spinning plant in Onehunga, adjacent to the tufting plant, with around 85 job losses, and redundancies at Summit Wool Spinners in Oamaru earlier this year.

“It is good that a substantial number of jobs will be offered at Cavalier Bremworth’s plant in Papatoetoe. These are skilled workers and the company will want to retain their expertise as far as they can,” Paul Watson said.

“Unfortunately there will likely be a small number of redundancies and different work hours will not suit all workers.”

Paul Watson said that despite upbeat talk from the government on manufacturing, there were still significant challenges in many parts of the manufacturing industry outside of the primary sector.

“The government can try and talk up the state of manufacturing but workers lives are still being disrupted,” he said.

Ends.

Background:

Norman Ellison Carpets is 100% owned by Cavalier Corporation. More information about the company is here. Today’s announcement follows the closure of Norman Ellison Carpet’s Onehunga wool spinning plant last year, resulting in around 85 job losses. Cavalier retains wool spinning plants in Napier and Whanganui. Today’s announcement is regarding the tufting (carpet making) plant, on the same Onehunga site.

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