Rubber factory to lay off 20

Press, 13 June 1986, Page 1

Rubber factory to lay off 20

Twenty rubber workers at the Woolston factory of Skellerup Polymer Products, Ltd, will be laid off because of the downturn in the dairy industry, said the company’s manager, Mr Basil McGarry, last evening. One of the company’s main products was the lining or “inflation” for milking machines. Domestic orders for these had dropped off because of the projected downturn in the dairy industry, making the redundancies. necessary, he said. Mr McGarry said that redundancy would not be confined to rubber workers. "Once you look at redundancies in the mainstream area there have to be redundancies right down the line,” he said. Although he was unwilling to give details of the other redundancies, Mr McGarry said that management staff would also be affected. The redundancies represented 20 per cent of the company’s workforce, and came after 20 voluntary redundancies made earlier in the year, The rubber industry had been among the hard-est-hit by adverse economic conditions and competition from imported products over the last decade, said Mr McGarry. In the early 1970 s his company had employed about 300 people, but this was now down to less than 100, he said. The secretary of the Canterbury Rubber Workers’ Union, Mr Roger Brott, said he learnt of the redundancies yesterday morning and would discuss the issue with workers at a stop-work meeting on Tuesday morning.