Wattie redundancies?

Press, 27 November 1986, Page 3

Wattie redundancies?

PA Wellington The need for redundancies “of any magnitude” arising from the proposed merger of Goodman Fielder, Ltd, and Wattie Industries, Ltd, has been ruled out by the managing director of Watties, Mr Cliff Lyon. Mr Lyon said yesterday that, excluding breadbaking and ice-cream manufacture, there was less than a 10 per cent product overlap in New Zealand.

The company was not, therefore, “talking of any need for redundancies of any magnitude.” Redundancy should not

be ruled out in Australia either but 70 per cent of the Watties and Goodman Fielder range was not duplicated either in New Zealand or in Australia, Mr Lyon said. Any minor impact could be offset by the creation

of additional jobs, he said. The secretary of the Food Processing and Chemical Union, Mr Garth Fraser, who said on Wednesday that his union was as much in the dark about the proposals as anyone else, has held talks with Watties. In Auckland on Monday, Mr Lyon said the proposed merger would

mean a combined staff of 28,000 — 4000 more than Fletcher Challenge, Ltd.

Those staff would be “carefully thought about,” he said, but could not guarantee that there would not be redundancies.

Mr Fraser said his union did not see any immediate difficulties over the proposal. However, Watties kept talking of no significant” redundancies. Trade unionists became a little nervous when they heard words like that as what might be insignificant to big companies was not to the individuals concerned.