North Otago Mayor Gary Kircher has aired some worry about possible staff displacement at North Otago’s Pukeuri freezing works if the Alliance Group’s Timaru site shuts.
Alliance, the owner of Smithfield and Pukeuri plants, has said that if the proposal to close Smithfield is confirmed following a consultation process, impacted staff, wherever possible, will be offered the opportunity to apply for redeployment at the company’s other processing plants. However, it anticipates there would be a significant number of redundancies.
Wayne Shaw, General Manager Processing and Safety at Alliance, said: “There is no risk of Pukeuri staff being displaced by Smithfield staff if the proposal to close to Smithfield plant is confirmed following the end of the consultation period.”
A multi-agency meeting was held yesterday in Timaru to discuss a co-ordinated approach to support the more than 600 Alliance Smithfield workers who may well end up losing their jobs following the company’s announcement last Friday.
The mayors of Timaru, Waitaki, Waimate, the MPs for Waitaki and Rangitata and various government agencies were part of the meeting to consider the support of the workers facing possible redundancy or redeployment to another site.
Alliance plans to close its 139-year-old Smithfield complex by the end of the year.
Last Friday, Alliance chief executive Willie Wiese said the proposed closure was due to a decline in sheep processing numbers as a result of land-use change, which had resulted in surplus capacity in the company’s plant network.
Kircher said he was keeping a "close eye" on the evolving Alliance situation, given its importance to both the North Otago community and economy.
The impact overall, but for Timaru in particular, was "one of those very sad situations", he said.
"We will do what we can."
However, while Alliance was in the consultation phase for Timaru, the Pukeuri operation would also be impacted.
"‘There will be flow-on effects," Mr Kircher said.
The Alliance site at Pukeuri employs over 900.
It is a vital aspect of the Waitaki economy, drawing workers from across the district as well as nearby South Canterbury.
Mr Kircher said it would be in the interest of Alliance to move a talented worker from Smithfield down to Pukeuri and avoid a redundancy payment rather than employ a school leaver or older worker from Waitaki.
Alliance general manager safety and processing Wayne Shaw said this week if the closure was confirmed at Smithfield then affected staff would be offered redeployment to other Alliance sites.
Mr Kircher said the ripple effect of that redeployment on towns like Oamaru and Waimate could not be underplayed given the probability some of those new positions would be at Pukeuri.
The downstream effect was that some existing workers might no longer have a job.
He believed that existing workers in the retirement age bracket and young locals wanting to leave school would be the most impacted, Mr Kircher said.
"If they do close, and there’s movement of staff down to Pukeuri, that may displace some of our locals, either those on work visas or for young people entering the workforce."
In August, Oamaru’s other meat plant announced the loss of 75 jobs, in a restructure to bring it in line with more realistic production goals.
At the time, Alliance offered its sympathy, encouraging affected Oamaru Meats workers to consider applying for jobs at Pukeuri or Smithfield.
