Jobs to go at Timaru port after Fonterra export call

Jobs will go following Fonterra's decision to export from Lyttelton, PrimePort Timaru workers have been told.

At a staff meeting yesterday afternoon, workers heard of likely job losses. They were not told how many jobs would go, but permanent employees are likely to move to casual contracts with a guaranteed number of hours.

Fonterra said last week it would be exporting dairy products from its Clandeboye factory out of Lyttelton, not Timaru. That is expected to cut PrimePort's yearly container throughput from 61,000 to about 37,000. The container terminal's break-even point is 60,000 containers.

PrimePort chief executive Jeremy Boys said it would be a couple of weeks before it was known what final form the restructuring would take. "It was a meeting to discuss the situation we are in. It could take a couple of months. We have provided staff with some assurance we will be doing what we can to retain jobs. There will be job loses and the re-shaping of jobs."

He said permanent employees could be shifted to casual contracts. "The port is still in a very strong financial position with our bulk trade."

The port has about 70 permanent and casual employees, after 30 redundancies last year. That was the result of the port's throughput dropping from 80,000 to 61,000, when a number of big shipping companies reconfigured their services.

Rail and Maritime Transport Union Timaru branch president Peter Clemens said workers had taken the news hard.

"Everyone is gutted," Mr Clemens said.

"It looks grim. This is the second time in a year and a half. It seems strange Lyttelton had their eye on the ball and we didn't."

Jobs were likely to be lost from the operations side of business, rather than management, Mr Clemens added.

"It was made clear the marketing manager they have just taken on will keep his job and it will be the operations jobs that will go. While they spoke in very broad terms it will be the indians that go, not the chiefs." Fonterra `harming NZ', P6

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