Factory staff guard against eviction

Managing director Hadley Wright and factory union delegate Sue Turnbull fear that the 105-year-old company will go to the wall. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Workers at one of New Zealand's oldest engineering firms are on nightly guard duty against eviction from the path of the $1.75 billion Waterview motorway project.

The nerves of 50 workers and the management of family-owned Faulkner Collins, a wire fabricator which has been in business since 1905, have been frayed since the Transport Agency and its lawyers showed up at its Stoddard Rd factory on Friday to turf them out and change the locks.

After being told it needed a court order - and faced with the sudden convergence of officials from the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union - the agency backed off and says it will pursue $99,000 in rent arrears by other means.

But factory supervisor and union delegate Sue Turnbull, an employee of 25 years, said yesterday that the workers had rostered themselves to guard the premises at nights in case of a return visit.

Managing director Hadley Wright said he did not want to hold up the motorway but was in despair after years of trying to reach a fair agreement with the Crown to have the factory relocated to a suitable site without loss.

He said delays in reaching agreement, in which an offer of $140,000 for the premature termination of his lease was reduced to $1, had scuttled attempts to persuade an equity partner and financiers to bail it out of almost $1.5 million in debts to Inland Revenue Department and the Transport Agency.

He therefore wants the Crown to pay those debts as well as relocation costs of about $1.38 million.

The Transport Agency, which bought the site from a previous owner under the Public Works Act and hopes to gain resource consents to begin the bulk of the motorway project late next year, wants it cleared by January for a new interchange it has started building between Maioro St and Stoddard Rd.

Regional director Stephen Town said the company had not paid rent since April and earthworks for the $40 million interchange had to be completed over summer to meet a project deadline.

Mr Wright said the company had always paid its taxes on time before getting into difficulties two years ago in the depths of the recession, and could have kept doing so with a solid agreement from the Crown to satisfy its proposed Chinese-based equity partner.

He said orders for products such as supermarket trolleys and fridge shelving had since picked up to the point he had reintroduced overtime and hoped to build staff numbers back to the 85 who worked for the company before the recession.

Christchurch-based Skope Industries confirmed it would face difficulties filling orders for commercial fridges without wire shelves supplied by Faulkner Collins.

A spokeswoman for Transport Minister Steven Joyce said he would speak to Transport Agency chairman Chris Moller "about whether any further avenues might exist to bring an outcome that is satisfactory to both parties". That follows a meeting yesterday between Mr Joyce and Opposition Leader Phil Goff, as MP for Roskill.