Cycle workers to be laid off

Press, 6 February 1986, Page 1

Cycle workers to be laid off

Twenty-one staff at the Healing Industries, Ltd, cycle factory in Bromley will be made redundant. The staff yesterday were given a month’s notice that they would be laid off. The general manager of the company’s cycle division, Mr John Elmsly, said a number of factors had led to this “regrettable and unavoidable decision.” He said the company had recently experienced a significant weakening in both domestic and export demand for cycles. “This, coupled with increased imports at, costs and prices which cannot be matched locally, has added to the problem,” he said. “The tender licensing system will inevitably result in an increase in imported cycles. This has left-Healing no alternative but to bid for sufficient licences in order to main-

tain our market and sales, and to remain cost-effec-tive.”

He gave assurances that Healing intended doing all it could to minimise the impact bn staff being made redundant. “All staff will receive redundancy pay and will be assisted by the company in finding alternative employment in the Christchurch area,” he said.

The Engineers’ Union, the Labour Department, and the Christchurch City Council had all been advised of the situation.

Healing’s cycle factory at Bromley employs 86 people and has been working since 1977. Twenty of those to be made redundant are members of the Engineers’ Union. The secretary of the Canterbury branch, Mr Robert Todd, said, “There have been warning signs that a retrenchment in the engin-

eering industry was on the way. That has now started. “In the last two weeks we have been notified that five employers intend to make some of their staff redundant. That will involve between 25 and 30 people, and does not include the 21 to be laid off at Healing’s," he said.7s “The indications are that all is not well, and we as a union hope to be having meetings with people in Government circles and with local members of Parliament to see what can be done to alleviate the problem. “We don’t want to get back into the situation we were in a couple of years ago when the Engineers’ Union faced massive redundancies involving about 500 members,” he said.

“That was a traumatic experience and one that the union’s executive does not want to see repeated.”