By ALAN PERROTT
About 100 jobs will be cut at the Glenbrook steel mill and United States tariffs have been blamed.
Trade Negotiations Minister Jim Sutton said the job cuts announced at the Australian-owned South Auckland mill yesterday were sad and undeserved.
"I feel terribly sad about it. Those guys don't deserve
that and the company doesn't deserve that. It's due to the, in our view, unjustified barriers erected by the US Government against steel ... We are in no way responsible for the difficulties the US steel industry finds itself in."
President George W. Bush announced the trade barrier on March 6, imposing a 30 per cent tariff on steel imports to protect manufacturers in the politically important "rustbelt" states.
The Glenbrook steel mill employs about 1350 people and exports about 60 per cent of its annual production of 600,000 tonnes to the United States.
The tariffs were designed to appeal to American voters, said Mr Sutton.
"It's a purely political thing. We feel quite resentful of it."
BHP NZ Steel president Cyril Benjamin blamed the job cuts on the US tariffs and higher financial targets being set by the owners.
He hoped most of the cuts could be made by workers accepting voluntary retirement.
Staff could then be redeployed within the company and redundancies would be used only as a last resort.
Peter Elsley, senior union delegate at the Glenbrook mill, said the job cuts were not a surprise but staff were not happy about the company's reluctance to make redundancy payouts.
BHP NZ Steel gave employees two months to request voluntary redundancy from early July, but Mr Elsley said the company would not say how many applications had been received and how many more job cuts would be necessary.
The company has proposed that those losing their jobs will be placed in a work pool with 10 weeks' income protection.
Pool workers will be allocated to different tasks on a daily or weekly basis.
Mr Elsley said the proposal was unacceptable and workers could face large pay cuts once the period of pay protection ended.
Mr Sutton said the Government was lobbying the United States for a meeting on the issue, but said the Americans were dealing first with those countries capable of damaging trade retaliation.
"It's a bit like the Waimate under 7 stones going in against the All Blacks."
