More car plant redundancies

Press, 3 February 1983, Page 3

More car plant redundancies

PA Auckland Two South Auckland motor-assembly plants which make cars and light commercial vehicles for Nissan Datsun will lay off 89 employees. At the company's Wiri car assembly plant, 47 workers will be made redundant and 42 will go from the Otahuhu plant which produces light commercials. The laid-off workers were issued with redundancy notices on Tuesday, effective from March 1. Some workers have already gone while others are being allowed time off to look for other jobs. It was believed in Auckland yesterday that the 89 redundancies included some from the management side. A joint company-union statement, issued by Mr Ken Bania, Nissan's general manager of employee relations, said that a further deterioration in the national market for passenger and light commercial vehicles, especially in December and January, had resulted in “excess stock levels." This had made it necessary for the company to reduce output of vehicles from its Wiri and Otahuhu plants and “regrettably, it is necessary to adjust staffing levels accordingly."

Mr Bania said that discussions were to take place in Wellington on Friday between motor-assembly unions and the employers on

the employment situation in the industry. Before Christmas, Nissan was one of the companies which took part in the voluntary redundancy scheme run by most motor-vehicle assemblers to reduce staff at plants throughout New Zealand. In this exercise, 150 employees were laid off from Nissan. With another 89 on the way out, it means the company has lost almost a quarter of its work-force since November.

Tomorrow’s all-party national industry meeting in Wellington will’ be a continuation of a meeting last week between unions and companies at which little progress was made on working out how to avoid more lay-offs. Since then, General Motors has said that 150 of its employees are to go and Todd Motors say 60 are being made redundant from its plant., The employers' advocate, Mr lan Clark,’ said that there was no formal agenda for tomorrow. “We will have an open mind,” he said. The question of a shorter, or four-day working week could be discussed, although at least one union leader has already publicly rejected the idea. Mazda said no decision on action affecting workers after tomorrow would be made until later. A company executive, Mr Colin French, said that the stockpile of cars was such that "some-

thing had to give.

Either the market would improve or production would have to be cut, he said. .i The Ford Motor Company's public affairs manager,’ Mr Tony Wright, said that the company had no planned announcement on redundancies, which was at the bottom of a list of other means of reducing its stockpile of cars. He declined to say what the alternatives were.

Reducing the company's work-force by 150 before Christmas had partly alleviated the problem.

The New Zealand Motor Corporation's general manager, Mr Bruce Carson, would make no comment on redundancies within his company. He said that the situation was under continual review and that the company would remain “flexible." Toyota would not have to lay off more workers because the company stockpile at Thames and Christchurch would be “soaked up" by dealers.

A public relations spokesman, Mr David Findlay, said that the early action of laying off a small number of workers in September had enabled the company to avoid large-scale redundancies.

Motorholdings, which assembles part of the Mazda fleet, was not expected to have to lay off workers. The company was negotiating to assemble an additional make of car, which it would not name.