Another one of the business big wigs attending John Key's 'Jobs Summit, is Fisher & Paykel chief executive John Bongard.
He'll no doubt be expressing his concern about keeping New Zealanders in jobs despite the fact that his company laid off some 430 workers in 2007 when it shifted most of his operations offshore to Mexico and Thailand - where wage levels are a whole lot lower.
Fisher and Paykel closed down its Mosgiel plant, showing little gratitude for the millions of dollars it had received from the good folk of the south in the way of generous rates relief.
Engineering, Printers and Manufacturing Union chief Andrew Little (yes, him again) once again travelled down the road signposted 'Least Resistance'.
Little's lacklustre response was to shrug his shoulders and observe that, well, 'that most exporting manufacturers in New Zealand are struggling with a high US-NZ dollar.' Perhaps realising he was making excuses for Fisher and Paykel, he went on to add that he did 'expect companies the size of Fisher and Paykel to work hard to keep jobs here.'
Stirring stuff indeed.
Little then went on to complain that he and the EPMU had not been been properly 'consulted' about the redundancies
Not that it would have made a blind bit of difference anyway, given Little's dismal track record. He was, for example, 'consulted' every step of the way by Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe when he was busy firing staff.
But the hopeless Little had more to say.
He warned Fisher and Paykel that he might just have to look to 'the international trades union movement for info and advice about conditions in Mexico and measuring conditions there against conditions here.'
What this was supposed to prove is anyone's guess but that's Little for you - why say anything real when you can just bullshit?
Of course there's now a possibility that John Key will help out his old mate John Bongard and bailout what remains of Fisher and Paykel in New Zealand with a truckload of taxpayer money.
John Bongard is on an annual salary of $1.2 mllion.
There's a long list of New Zealand companies who used to manufacture goods here: Macpac, Swandry, Fairydown, to name a few. They all packed up and shipped off to the likes of China or Thailand, where a wage slave gets paid next to nothing to produce their goods.
ReplyDeleteIt didn't matter to these companies that they might owe their New Zealand workers some gratitude for long and loyal service. It didn't matter to these companies that their workers might have families to feed or mortgages to pay. No, shareholders and profit are what matters.
And where was the "Labour" Party while these companies were shutting up shop? They were showing token 'concern' but behind closed doors their representatives were in Beijing negotiating free-trade deals to help destroy our manufacturing sector some more. Andrew Little also had nothing useful to say except "Be gentle when you put the boot in".
Of course these companies want you to believe that these products made in labour cost havens like Mexico, China, or Thailand are the same as what they used to produce in New Zealand. In these countries wage slaves get less in a week than the New Zealand hourly minimum wage! These companies still want to trade on the reputations their New Zealand workers helped established but not pay homage to them. Their marketing would like you to believe that they're still a "good ol' New Zealand company". In fact theres nothing New Zealand about them.