LWR union blames management

Lane Walker Rudkin Industries' receivership is linked to poor management of the business and the impact of the bitter and public marriage breakup involving owner Ken Anderson, the National Distribution Union claims.

Workers at LWR plants around New Zealand were shocked when told about 4pm yesterday that the company had gone into receivership, NDU secretary of the clothing and textiles sector Maxine Gay said.

Workers were confused by the fact that locks were being changed and statements made that redundancies would be capped, but then also to turn up to work today, she said.

The breakup of the marriage of Ken and Patricia Anderson during 2008 was known by staff and led to difficulties in union negotiations during the first part of the year, Gay said.

She said that the purchase of the business by the Andersons around 2001 had been welcomed by staff at the time, but in her opinion in the past couple of years the management of the company had deteriorated.

Ken Anderson is now listed as the 100 per cent owner of LWR Industries, and the Companies Office shows Patricia has resigned as a director of the company.

Gay said: "The problem is of course, it's not so much the intimate details of the marriage splits and the difficulties and everyone gets a bit unstable around that" but that in her opinion "when that spills over into the business ... then you get decisions made that are not necessarily in the best interests of the company and certainly not in the best interests of the workers.''

In the first half of 2008 the union had been negotiating a new agreement with the family and management.

"It was a really long drawn out process, and agreements would be made (but) by the time we came back to the table for round two the agreements were off.

"It was completely erratic, they were very difficult to deal with at that time ... it was a very public and very acrimonious business and personal relationship breakup and what we believed had also impacted on the decisions that were being made at the time.''

While there were hopes that parts at least of the company could be salvaged, the union was yet to engage with either management, the receivers BDO Spicers, or Westpac bank which appointed BDO yesterday.

LWR has hosiery and garment factories in Christchurch; garment manufacturers in Greytown and Pahiatua, a sock factory in Timaru and a sports apparel factory in Brisbane.

Ken Anderson was not available to respond to the union's comments.

Port Hills MP Ruth Dyson said Canterbury Labour MPs would look to work collaboratively to do whatever they could to help save the LWR workers' jobs.

She understood a proposal is being circulated to have a task specific group formed within the next couple of days, involving councils, the export associations, the Ministry of Social Development, Westpac, unions and MPs.