Stock shortage means staff laid off

Press, 30 January 1988, Page 14

Stock shortage means staff laid off

By

RICHARD CRESSWELL,

industrial reporter About 220 staff on Waitaki Islington’s mutton and lamb chains will be laid off for up to a month because of a shortage of stock, said the plant meat manager, Mr Murray Johnson, yesterday. He said the lay-offs would be made on Tuesday. He could not more definite on numbers until foremen’s reports from the chains had been made. The plant will go from 3y 2 chains to two, but there will be no change to the beef chain nor to further processing at the plant. The general manager

for Canterbury Frozen Meat, Mr Geoff Rowe, said the company had temporarily laid off about 90 staff at its Belfast plant on Thursday. About another 90 workers each at Fairton in Ashburton and Pareora in Timaru will be laid off on Tuesday. The lay-offs would be for about three weeks until stock numbers picked up. The lay-offs were on mutton chains. The group processing manager for the C. S. Stevens group, Mr Robert Cooke, said the company had no plans "at this stage” to lay off staff from its kaiapoi and Sockburn plants. However, he said the Kaiapoi plant had not

killed for one day this week and had worked two half-days. The Sockburn plant had worked one short day this week. •, Mr Cooke said the stock shortage had happened only during this week. The manager of unemployment benefits for the Department of Social Welfare in Christchurch, Mr Alan McKenzie, said if the workers had been unemployed at any time during the last 12 weeks, the laid off workers could go straight back on to the dole. “They could go on to the benefit provided they met the ordinary criteria,” he said. The department would try to move swiftly for laid-off workers.