Bid to save factory at Westport

Press, 23 January 1988, Page 1

Bid to save factory at Westport

BY

RICHARD CRESSWELL,

industrial reporter

The P.D.L. factory in Westport may yet be saved by a rescue bid planned by business interests and the union movement, the M.P. for the West Coast, Mr Kerry Burke, said last evening.

P.D.L. Industries, Ltd, yesterday announced that the Westport factory would close in 10 weeks with the loss of 52 jobs. Relocation to the Christchurch plant would be offered in some cases.

Mr Burke said the factory had to be kept open.

Announcing the decision to staff yesterday the company chairman, Sir Robertson Stewart, blamed the Government’s removal of development assistance and the area’s isolation. “At the same time we are faced with intense competition from overseas products and a policy of reduction in tariffs.” Mr Burke said he hoped to get a feasibility study done into keeping the site going. Specific grants and funding were available, through the Government.

“I am hopeful local business and the union movement can get together to keep it running,” he said.

He said that if the company had been in trouble in Westport then it needed some special form of help. Such assistance would not be for the whole country’s industry, but as a special case. He said he had proposed the company put their case to the Government last year, but it had not done so.

“P.D.L. should explain its reasons why they chose not to ask for assistance.”

He said the company could not claim a lack of Government support. The company had received a small amount and did not make a case for further assistance.

He said he could present a specific case to the Government but whether his position as Speaker of the House would weaken the thrust of the claim, he could not say. “P.D.L. certainly never came to me with a special case or to ask for special assistance,” he said. From 1974 to 1986 the company had only had assistance worth $84,000. The district secretary of the Canterbury branch of the Engineers Union, Mr Bob Todd, said the loss of jobs was a tragedy. The union also blamed the job losses on the lack of regional assistance from the Government. He said the union last year had considered salvaging part or all of the Westport business. It had sought a $20,000 feasibility grant from the Government but the new Minister of Regional Development, Mr Butcher, had declined to make a grant. Mr Todd said the union had then continued to seek ways to

keep the plant open. He said meetings were being arranged to find out how much business support there would be for a rescue mission to preserve employment in Buller. A further application for study funds would be required. "To their credit P.D.L. have given their support to the study where possible,” he said.

P.D.L. had said it looked at every alternative to closing including finding another buyer for the site. The close down follows the announcements of the P.D.L. group’s interim result in December.

For the first time in the company’s 40-year history the group reported a loss for the six months to September when P.D.L. posted a loss of $250,000 compared with a profit of $2,695,000 for the previous corresponding period. The Westport plant was originally owned by Matai Industries which went into receivership in early 1975.The company was purchased by P.D.L. Holdings, Ltd, under guarantee of regional development assistance.

The plant will close on March 31 with a final asset and plant clearance by the end of April.