Fresh hope for workers

Press, 10 December 1983, Page 1

Fresh hope for workers

About half of the 35 workers laid off from the Christchurch engineering shop of W. H. Price and Son, Ltd, will be able to keep their jobs into the new year. Representatives of the engineers, moulders, and clerical workers’ unions met the managing director of the company’s new owner, Mr G. W. T. Christie, yesterday. A press statement issued after the meeting said an agreement had been reached that the company would be kept working “in a restructured form.” The secretary of the Brass _ Moulders’ Union, Mr Norman Dewes, said that some redundancies would still be necessary but it was hoped that those made redundant would be given first right of refusal after, the company had been built jfip again. “All existing parts of pro-

duction within W. H. Price and Son will all be retained but on a restricted basis. The biggest achievement is that we have salvaged a company in Christchurch that will keep people employed,” Mr Dewes said. The company would continue working on a smaller scale until the restructured version could be built up. “Mr Christie has a good business head on his shoulders,” Mr Dewes said. In the initial analysis of the business leading to the decision to make the redundancies, “everything had been done in reverse,” he said, but he was more optimistic about the future. The proposal for the workers and union to buy into the business had been received favourably by the management, he said, and was still an option open to • them.