Andersons likely to lay off workers

Press, 10 February 1983, Page 3

Andersons likely to lay off workers

A shortage of orders for engineering work has forced the big Christchurch engineering company, Andersons Engineering, to consider laying off some of its workers. The secretary of the Canterbury branch of the Engineers’ Union, Mr R. J. Todd, confirmed yesterday that the company had approached the union, proposing to lay off 13 or 14 members of the union from the works.

Workers at the plant in Hillsborough yesterday met union representatives to discuss the company’s proposal. Mr Todd said that he could foresee nothing that would forestall redundancies. Talks with the company will resume on Monday.

Mr Todd said that the situation confirmed the view that he had expressed before Christmas that the Government was not ensuring that sufficient engineering work for energy-related projects

was being given to New Zealand engineering firms. “Too much is going overseas,” he said. The company’s general manager, Mr Terry Arthurs, said that the company did not like having to make any of its work-force redundant, but it had already “carried” them since November or December last year, and could not do so any longer in the face of a shortage of orders. Mr Arthurs said that while the lack of work from en-ergy-related projects was a contributory factor, there was also a lack of iu sin ess confidence in New Zealand at present which ha dampened -demand. Other reasons for -.he lack of demand included the imposition in the Budget last year of sales tax on boilers, and the removal of tax write-offs for coal or natural gas boilers. The company had spent a lot of money developing coal-fired boilers to replace the oil-fuel boilers which burned imported fuel and was getting many inquiries, but potential buyers were not prepared to commit their money at present. One other factor was the sudden reduction in demand for construction equipment, said Mr Arthurs. The company, a subsidiary of the Ceramco group, has about 330 workers at its engineering plant and foundry in Christchurch.