The future for workers at Norsewear New Zealand's Wanganui manufacturing plant remained under a cloud yesterday.
And speculation that the company is about to shift its New Zealand manufacturing operations offshore, possibly to China, remained just that - speculation. An announcement on the company's future plans was expected yesterday but by
late afternoon had still not materialised.
Norsewear's acting chief executive Myles Scholey was not available to comment and Ian Fitzgerald, a Norsewear director and managing director of Burleigh Evatt, the company's major shareholder, was also unavailable yesterday.
Even the National Distribution Union's Manawatu-Wanganui region organiser, Dion Martin, was still in the dark late yesterday afternoon about the fate facing his union members in Wanganui and at Norsewear's factory at Norsewood, near Dannevirke. As many as 60 people would be affected if the two plants closed.
Mr Martin said he had no idea what Norsewear's intentions were and that made it difficult for him to do anything at this stage to ensure the workers got a fair deal. While most workers were covered by a redundancy agreement, the potential payouts were "not great" and were capped at 11 years' service.
And facing redundancy at this time of the year was also distressing.
He said he believed the company's handling of the situation was "very unprofessional".
Mr Martin said up to late yesterday the only inkling any of the workers had about the possible factory closure was via a copy of a website newspaper story pinned to a staff room noticeboard, and he had been unable to talk to any of the decision-makers to confirm or deny the closure rumours.
