About 100 jobs are expected to be lost from the signalled closure of apparel manufacturing plants run by Pacific Brands in Christchurch and Palmerston North.
The National Distribution Union said 38 workers, including nine salaried staff, are affected in Christchurch, and 51 workers, including five salaried staff, in Palmerston North.It understood the total could be as high as 100 staff.
The company has signalled 1850 job losses in Australia as it moves manufacturing to China. The move has triggered outrage because the company makes iconic Australian brands and has had government subsidies.
Unions have vowed to block any attempt to move manufacturing machinery out of Australia. The company's brands include Bonds, Holeproof and Berlei.
In New Zealand, the factories make gold topped socks, Canterbury branded socks and other hosiery.
The NDU said workers at both plants in New Zealand were called to meetings at 2pm today. The company told them of its new manufacturing policy and announced that it was formally beginning the consultation process with the union as required by the Collective Employment Agreement.
The union called on New Zealanders to join the chorus of opposition across the Tasman.
"The PacBrands story reads just like a re-run of Feltex and we fear that PacBrand workers will suffer the same fate," said NDU president Robert Reid.
In 2001 PacBrands was bought from Pacific Dunlop by private equity funds CVC Asia Pacific and Catalyst Investment Managers, the union said.
The private equity owner took cash out of the company, loaded it with debt and listed it on the share market, the union said.
"At the same time PacBrands told its New Zealand workers that it could not afford decent wage increases and from time to time forced them on to four day weeks," Mr Reid said.
The union wanted to work with the company to keep the factories open and save jobs.
But it also want to ensure workers' redundancies payments were safe if closure was the final decision.
"The redundancy payments for New Zealand Pacific Brand workers are very modest. They are just over a third of the entitlements that Australian Pacific Brands workers will receive," he said.
