Some workers at Carter Holt Harvey in Whangārei have lost thousands in a superannuation scheme due to market volatility.
Photo / John Stone
Some workers at Carter Holt Harvey in Whangārei have lost thousands in a superannuation scheme due to market volatility.
Photo / John Stone
Volatility on the stock market due to coronavirus has resulted in some workers of a Northland sawmill preparing for redundancy to lose value of their shares in fund managed by SuperLife, a subsidiary of the New Zealand Stock Exchange.
It's a double blow for workers of Carter Holt Harvey (CHH)in Whangārei, some of whom have already been made redundant as the company moves its operations to other plants around the country.
Some workers who belong to the Amalgamated Workers Union raised their concerns at a meeting last week over the impact coronavirus is having on the scheme's shares, run by SuperLife.
"We've got guys who've got $46,000 owing to them out of their super fund, they've been there 15 to 20 years and in the last five weeks, they've lost over $3500," union organiser in Northland Richard Palmer said.
"We're now talking with CHH and saying 'can we freeze it today'. All we want is a commitment from the company that they'll freeze it."
Palmer said any action to cushion the impact of the share market volatility would depend on what was in the fine print.
"All super funds invested in the share market have a low, medium, and high risk selection you can make so we've advised all our members in the high risk to drop to the low risk straight away to try and minimise the risk."
Members can withdraw their investment upon retirement, resignation or when they are made redundant.
Forty of the 111 CHH workers finished work on Friday while others will be made redundant progressively until the end of May.
Palmer said if the share prices plummeted the way it was going at the moment, some of the union members could lose in excess of $5000.
Amalgamated Workers Union's Richard Palmer has advised high risk scheme members members at CHH to drop to low risk.
Photo / Tania Whyte
SuperLife chief executive Hugh Stevens said there were options available for members, if they wished, to move to a cash or low risk option.
He said the market volatility was "quite normal" and those that invested in the long term would get a better return.
SuperLife staff have met with the CHH workers and Stevens said there were many who didn't want to withdraw their money as they saw a better long-term return.
Forty per cent of 62 union members at CHH in Whangārei have secured alternative employment at businesses throughout Northland and Palmer said he was confident most of them would follow suit by the end of May.
