WHANGAREI - Unions say about 100 workers now at Northport Engineering could suffer as a result of the planned $80 million superyacht facility at Port Whangarei.
Expatriate businessman Allen Jones' New Zealand Yachts development is expected to create 120 jobs in the short-term, with a workforce of 1000 expected within five years and as many as 2000 longer term.
But in the meantime, union representatives fear that many workers made redundant as a result of the $6.25 million sale of the Northport Engineering site to Mr Jones will leave the district or will not be re-employed.
Port company chief executive Vern Dark said 60 of Northport Engineering's 103 employees would be made redundant over the next three months. Of the balance, about half would be needed until early next year and the final group would work through to about mid-2002, he said.
The company's last projects would be a refit of the tug Asteri to turn it into a luxury vessel and the building of a 49m research vessel.
Mr Dark said that, with the development of its new $65 million deepwater port at Marsden Pt, the port company wanted to focus on its core business.
NZ Yachts' plans were a "huge, positive development for Whangarei," he said.
But New Zealand Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union organiser Heinz Schmitt said that many of the 60 to 80 workers who had left Northport Engineering in the past year had left the district.
"There are constantly people taking voluntary redundancy, and they are going out of the district because there is no work for them," he said.
A highly skilled industry was about to disappear, to be replaced by one with a greater mix of high and "fairly low" skills.
More orders would have to be found before the superyachts development could provide the 1000 to 2000 jobs mooted and be a positive prospect for Whangarei, said Mr Schmitt.
"That's entirely speculation at the moment," he said.
"There is a concern that the new owners [of Northport Engineering] are not interested in the existing workforce."
He hoped to start discussions soon with NZ Yachts about their workforce requirements.
- NZPA
Whangarei superyachts not all good news: unions
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