KEY POINTS:
The sense of shock in Dannevirke yesterday after the Tararua township learned of the likely closure of the Oringi freezing works is likely to be repeated in other New Zealand towns in the near future.
Unionists and factory bosses were downbeat yesterday, with both predicting difficult times for
the meat industry, and more plant closures.
The fate of the PPCS Oringi freezing works, one of the district's biggest employers with 466 workers, is not yet sealed, with the company announcing yesterday that it was embarking on a consultation process about the plant's future.
But Meat Workers union general secretary Dave Eastlake was adamant the plant would close.
"The only alternative to its closure is to find a million lambs from somewhere and nobody has any.
"We would expect further closures, probably some of them in the very near future."
PPCS chief executive Keith Cooper said Oringi had fallen victim to several factors: drought conditions, the shift from sheep to dairy farming, increased competition from nearby plants, and greater use of sheep farming land for arable crops.
Mr Cooper said if the Oringi proposal was signed off it would spell an end to the company's restructuring in the North Island, but warned the company still had to deal with an estimated two million fewer lambs in the South Island next killing season.
"Inevitably we will be addressing proposals in the South Island with various plants in the near future," Mr Cooper said.
Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton accepted that the meat industry had excess capacity, but condemned what PPCS has termed its "rightsizing" programme.
He said "ad hoc closures and rationalisations" were not the best way forward for the meat industry. "While I understand what the company was hoping to achieve with its rationalisation programme, dropping such announcements like thunderbolts from the sky was not a good way to deal with workers," Mr Anderton said.
Tararua District Mayor Maureen Reynolds said the closure of Oringi was something people had always had in the back of their minds because the works had been in operation for several years beyond its expected 15-year lifespan.
But to actually receive the news had still left Dannevirke's population of 5600 in a state of shock.
"The mood is quite sombre. Yesterday they were concerned, today they are sombre and reeling from the announcement," she said.
The region is familiar with large-scale job losses. The nearby Norsewear clothing factory closed in 2007 and a Feltex carpet plant ceased business in 2006. Dannevirke's unemployment rate was low and the dairy sector was buoyant, but for a small town to lose so many jobs at the same time was devastating, Mrs Reynolds said.
She hoped a revitalisation project currently under way in the town's CBD - including the installation of fibre optic cables - might attract new firms.
"We have a good labour force here, unemployment has been low for some time, but this will give it a jolt, unfortunately.
"This is something that has always been dreaded because it [the freezing works] was a major employer in the district."
Mr Cooper said approximately 100 Oringi workers might be able to transfer to the firm's plant in nearby Waipukurau.
PPCS and the Meat Workers Union plan to open a resource centre for PPCS staff , while Work and Income yesterday announced it would offer tailored assistance programmes to find former PPCS workers new jobs.