Grim times for Coast as big hirers downsize

By Laura Mills

Other·

8 May, 2015 05:00 PM3 mins to read

The mood was grim as Solid Energy employees filed out of the NBS Theatre in Westport today, just minutes after finding out the company was cutting 151 jobs, plus up to 15 contracting jobs - from its Stockton mine. The company is cutting 151 jobs, but some of the losses will be made up of unfilled vacancies, meaning 113 current staff will lose their jobs. This cuts the number of staff at the mine from 397 to 246. It follows Solid's decision to cut 185 jobs a year ago.

The ramifications of a further 113 job losses at Stockton will reverberate right down the West Coast, over the railway line and all the way to the Port of Lyttelton, West Coast-Tasman MP Damien O'Connor says.

Solid Energy is cutting its workforce because coal production is falling.

The number of jobs - which peaked at 1100 only a few years ago - will be cut from the current total of 397 to 246.

In worsening news for Westport, the town will lose a further 110 jobs in a year's time when Holcim closes the Cape Foulwind cement works. Holcim and Stockton are Westport's biggest employers.

In Reefton, Oceana Gold has already started winding down its Globe Progress Mine, which employs over 100 staff, most of whom commute from Greymouth and Westport.

At Stockton, the mine losses have averaged $2.1 million a month this financial year as the international price of coal fell from US$120 ($161) a tonne to US$83.

The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union says the latest cuts will suck $10 million out of the Buller economy in wages alone.

Mr O'Connor said the Government would have been considering the ramifications on the rail line, and Lyttelton.

"We are naive if we believe it's just the workers at Stockton the Government are concerned about."

The Coast had suffered through restructures before, but this time it had access to capital and fast broadband. "Development West Coast is going to be a key part of [its future]. If we want a bank, we have NBS [Nelson Building Society]."

Development West Coast chairman John Sturgeon, who once worked at Denniston, told Radio New Zealand yesterday: "It [Westport] is a dying town all right; there's no doubt about that, and that's a shame.

"Some of these people have been there their whole lives; it is not good."

But Buller Mayor Garry Howard disagreed with Mr Sturgeon's "dying town" comments. "I take issue with that."

He said he was trying to look forward, with a real estate announcement looming, aimed at addressing the glut of houses expected to be listed as people move away.

Union organiser Garth Elliott said it would take time for the impact of the job cuts to trickle down, and compound. About 94 collective contract members would get redundancy.

Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn said Greymouth had been through the pain already, with the loss of 500 jobs at Pike River and then Spring Creek.

Solid Energy expects to finalise the restructure on May 26. The company will then undertake a process to select employees for the remaining mining jobs and in other areas where fewer people are required, with redundancies confirmed by mid-June.

- Greymouth Star