Transpacific sale 'not all good news for workers'

The sale of Transpacific Industries Group’s New Zealand assets has come at a cost to some of its workers who are being made redundant, FIRST Union said today.

Yesterday Transpacific Industries Group announced that it had entered into an agreement to sell its New Zealand business to a wholly owned subsidiary of the Beijing Capital Group for NZ$950 million.

FIRST Union represents workers at many of the company’s New Zealand waste and recycling sites.

FIRST Union General Secretary Robert Reid said 12 workers in the Hutt Valley are being made redundant this week. This follows redundancies in Auckland and other parts of the country.

"This is very disappointing. When the proposed sale was announced last October, we said a sale would be a good opportunity to lift the status and pay of recycling workers at Transpacific. Instead, some of its workers are losing their jobs."

Transpacific had been subject to very high debt for a number of years under its previous owners. Robert Reid said that the company had over extended itself and then dealt with this by paying poverty wages to staff in its recycling centres.

"Recycling and waste management is physical and at times unpleasant work."

"Processing workers and drivers work very hard and their jobs are essential to keeping our streets and communities clean, but they are paid poor wages."

"Transpacific staff deserve better. We will work hard to ensure that the new owner does better by its staff that the previous one," Robert Reid said.