Dannevirke plant closes

Workers at a Dannevirke manufacturing plant are shocked and furious at being made redundant less than a week after their bosses told them their jobs were safe.

It’s a devastating blow for the remaining 30 staff at RCR Energy’s Dannevirke boiler plant, who’ve been whipped back and forth between despair and hope for months, E tu¯ union organiser Laurel Reid says. It’s one of the largest employers in the southern Hawke’s Bay town.

Almost half the plant’s workers got the axe at Christmas in a desperate attempt to keep RCR Energy afloat during its parent company’s administration.

Remaining workers felt more secure after being told last week the company was to be sold as a going concern to Windsor Engineering.

But on Tuesday, their newfound sense of security burned away as management announced the Dannevirke plant was not included in the sale and would close in four weeks.

‘‘Someone really stuffed up, giving them false hope like that. [The workers are] all very upset and angry. It’s been a very unfair process that’s kept them in the dark and under a lot of pressure for months,’’ Reid said.

The union organiser said many workers faced having to uproot their families and leave Dannevirke to get jobs that fitted their specific skill set after working at the plant for decades.

‘‘Some of these guys have basically only ever worked at the plant. Heavy fabrication is a very useful skill set, but there’s not a lot of options left for them in Dannevirke.

‘‘We’re reaching out to companies in Palmerston North and Hawke’s Bay the union deals with, trying to find if anyone’s got any jobs for them, so they don’t have to move, or find a way to make do on much lower pay.’’

Tararua mayor Tracey Collis said it was a devastating blow to lose any job in the district and RCR Energy was one of the larger employers in Dannevirke.

RCR’S parent company is the Australian engineering group RCR Tomlinson, which was placed in a trading halt on November 12 and entered voluntary administration nine days later.

This came after it was hit with a shareholder class action lawsuit, filed in the New South Wales Supreme Court.

Then just before Christmas, RCR Energy told the 51 staff at its Dannevirke boiler manufacturing plant that 20 jobs would need to be cut to keep the plant afloat amid the fallout.

RCR’S New Zealand subsidiaries tried to continue as normal, but struggled to secure new projects and clients, who were skittish about the parent company’s administration, RCR New Zealand’s executive general manager Andrew Stevens said.