Tyre plant men to meet today

Press, 28 March 1983, Page 1

Tyre plant men to meet today

PA Auckland Workers at the Feltex Reidrubber tyre factory in Auckland will meet this morning to discuss the company’s announcement that their jobs will go when the plant closes in June. Officials of several unions and the Auckland Trades Council will address the 440 workers facing redundancy at the Penrose plant.

The Opposition spokesman on labour, Mr E. E. Isbey, has also been asked to attend.

Union spokesmen said at the week-end that they would seek detailed information on the reasons behind the decision to shut the plant. Feltex Reidrubber was the only New Zealandowned tyre plant. The parent company, Feltex New Zealand,, Ltd, announced on Friday it had sold Reidrubber to another tyre firm, Dunlop New Zealand, Ltd.

Dunlop will shut the Penrose plant on June 17, although six Reidrubber retread factories and 31 sales branches throughout New Zealand, employing 340 staff, will be retained as going concerns. The workers hardest hit by the Reidrubber closing at Penrose are expected to be

the relative newcomers. Mr Isbey, who will attend today’s meeting at Reidrubber, said, “I have asked the Government to take urgent action to try to create jobs for the people who will be out of work. There is time to get Government agencies working to have jobs ready when the plant closes.” The secretary of the Engineers’ Union, Mr J. A. Butterworth, said that the unions would have a lot of questions about the closing. “Whether we can fight to prevent the closing I do not know yet, but we are not going to stand back and tell the workers to just pick up their redundancy pay.” The secretary of the Rubber Workers’ Union, Mr G. Gordon, said that Reidrubber had a fight on its hands.

Mr Gordon has worked at the factory for 23 years and is one of the workers who will lose his job. He said that a lot of questions. would be asked about why the factory must close.

Mr Gordon was shocked at the news and said, “We have heard so many rumours over the years. We expected a take-over but not the announcement of the closing.” ;