Kinleith lawyer says union's case unreal

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Unionists fighting mass layoffs at Carter Holt Harvey's Kinleith pulp and paper mill were accused last night at a legal hearing of plunging their heads "firmly in the sand".

Company lawyer Kit Toogood, QC, told the Employment Relations Authority in Auckland that the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union's entire case against plans to shed 381 jobs while contracting out maintenance had an air of unreality.

Managers had testified that the changes were needed to save the mill from a global glut of paper and pulp.

Authority head Alastair Dumbleton reserved his decision on the union application for an injunction to stop the clock ticking on the redundancies. It is expected next week.

The union also wants compliance orders requiring the company to bargain and consult its workforce "in good faith" before contractor ABB starts hiring up to 190 maintenance workers next month under a plan to save $31 million a year.

Mr Toogood denied that good faith provisions of the law were breached. Redundancy decisions fell within a company's sole right to manage its business without having to negotiate with anyone, as the Court of Appeal had affirmed.

He said the company had met its obligations to consult the workforce, starting with a March 27 announcement of its plans, although it had yet to finally award ABB a contract.

Union lawyer Anne-Marie Hendra said in earlier submissions yesterday that the plans were by then so advanced that the union had no chance of influencing them. She accused the company of hatching them in secret over several months.

She also accused it of supplying misleading information, including an assurance in November that it had no redundancies in mind, and a denial by mill manager David King that comparative studies of overseas operations were available.

She noted that the mill owner was looking for long-term improvements and said the union had an important role in helping it achieve these without surrendering members' jobs.



"Mr King has made it clear that what the company is pursuing is long-term improvement, it doesn't have a short-term problem."

But Mr Toogood said the com-pany had made it clear that"tinkering" with operations would no longer ensure the mill's future. The return on capital was abysmal.

The union "may earnestly want to contribute but they have no right to be so involved", said Mr Toogood.

Union witnesses at the two-day hearing contrasted the company's complaints of poor performance with a statement in its annual report that Kinleith and its sister mill at Kawerau were two of the world's lowest-cost pulp producers.

But Mr King said Kinleith had been unable to meet interest payments on its mortgage and faced competition from a New South Wales mill with lower production costs.