New Zealand company Sistema bought by US company. Union unhappy about current conditions

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#2065169 30-Jul-2018 19:21

Its a hard one. Make them increase bottom end wage rates, and they move offshore. Ironically they are here as offshore.

Allow them to keep wages low, so the employees stay employed and we encourage NZ as a low wage economy.

Unemployment is low here, that encourages lower wages, thats basic supply and demand, so there is weight that these employees would rather have this low paid and low skilled employment than go to the workplace where jobs are hard to find. They can however keep looking around. Those that want a better paid job will find it in time, if they look around. Bit harder if they all get laid off at once if Sistema bug out.

kryptonjohn

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#2065170 30-Jul-2018 19:23

Batman:

sdav:

I like how opinions are it's either status quo or pack up and move the factory to China... It's like this country is void of a middle ground or improving conditions for people at the lower end. But I guess when you have countries around the world you can dump anything and everything in including cheap labour this will always be how people look at the issue...

I am just thinking about F&P and other similar companies that have done that.

You can't tell a private company what to do.

You can suggest, but can't make them do it.

Yep. F&P have exported the low value jobs to Mexico and Thailand. The high value jobs in design and engineering are retained and expanded in NZ. The latter is the future and is what we should be hoping for.

tdgeek

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#2065179 30-Jul-2018 19:34

kryptonjohn:

Batman:

sdav:

I like how opinions are it's either status quo or pack up and move the factory to China... It's like this country is void of a middle ground or improving conditions for people at the lower end. But I guess when you have countries around the world you can dump anything and everything in including cheap labour this will always be how people look at the issue...

I am just thinking about F&P and other similar companies that have done that.

You can't tell a private company what to do.

You can suggest, but can't make them do it.

Yep. F&P have exported the low value jobs to Mexico and Thailand. The high value jobs in design and engineering are retained and expanded in NZ. The latter is the future and is what we should be hoping for.

That makes a lot of sense.

surfisup1000

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#2065219 30-Jul-2018 19:51

tdgeek:

Unemployment is low here, that encourages lower wages, thats basic supply and demand,

Low unemployment actually causes wages to increase.

surfisup1000

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#2065220 30-Jul-2018 19:52

kryptonjohn:

Yep. F&P have exported the low value jobs to Mexico and Thailand. The high value jobs in design and engineering are retained and expanded in NZ. The latter is the future and is what we should be hoping for.

This is why I said our failure is in education. But, that takes generations to fix.

tdgeek

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#2065234 30-Jul-2018 19:58

surfisup1000:

tdgeek:

Unemployment is low here, that encourages lower wages, thats basic supply and demand,

Low unemployment actually causes wages to increase.

.

How so? Due to lack of available employees? Sounds fair, but while unemployment is low, its not nil, there are always people looking for jobs, so when there is a job, the employer holds the cards. One job, 20 applicants type of thing.

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kingdragonfly

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#2065236 30-Jul-2018 19:59

Yep. F&P have exported the low value jobs to Mexico and Thailand. The high value jobs in design and engineering are retained and expanded in NZ. The latter is the future and is what we should be hoping for.

This was frequently touted in the US in the 1970's onward, as many corporations moved manufacturing and abroad.

The problem is high quality jobs sticking around is temporary at best. You end up with devastated cities like Detroit.

There's lots of engineering, science and math graduates in Indian and China.

Both Indian and China want the "whole enchilada": low-skill manufacturing jobs, and the high value design jobs.

Honestly I don't have the correct policies, except that good education is always key.

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#2065238 30-Jul-2018 19:59

Why is the Union wanting a living wage over 3 years when thats happening anyway by 2020? They do want 50c per hour more, but even so.

gzt

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#2065250 30-Jul-2018 20:01

Sounds like there is not much choice on the shifts. 12 hour days are not much fun after a while.

tdgeek

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#2065253 30-Jul-2018 20:04

kingdragonfly:

Honestly I don't have the correct policies, except that good education is always key.

Agree.

1. Use overseas cheaper labour to be successful.

2. Use Automation to reduce labour numbers

This is the way of the world. Education, which is not just the usual skills, also needs to include entrepreneurship, running small home businesses. Looking at what non automated jobs will exist in time, and skills and business skills there

kryptonjohn

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#2065257 30-Jul-2018 20:10

kingdragonfly:
Yep. F&P have exported the low value jobs to Mexico and Thailand. The high value jobs in design and engineering are retained and expanded in NZ. The latter is the future and is what we should be hoping for.

This was frequently touted in the US in the 1970's onward, as many corporations moved manufacturing and abroad.

The problem is high quality jobs sticking around is temporary at best. You end up with devastated cities like Detroit.

There's lots of engineering, science and math graduates in Indian and China.

Both Indian and China want the "whole enchilada": low-skill manufacturing jobs, and the high value design jobs.

Honestly I don't have the correct policies, except that good education is always key.

But Detroit was going to be devastated whether the jobs were exported or not. Either those car companies automated production or exported the jobs or they go out of business. Either way, low skilled jobs were doomed. The failure of Detroit was not growing a skilled industry there (somehow).

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#2065259 30-Jul-2018 20:12

kryptonjohn:

But Detroit was going to be devastated whether the jobs were exported or not. Either those car companies automated production or exported the jobs or they go out of business. Either way, low skilled jobs were doomed. The failure of Detroit was not growing a skilled industry there (somehow).

The days of Ford, GM, Pontiac, and all the rest, went the way of Japanese and Korean cars. The good old days they were, but selling the car with a 1/4 acre bonnet stopped!

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#2065263 30-Jul-2018 20:20

Benjip:
Those saying "move production to China", are you aware that one of the major success factors of the Sistema brand (and its products) is that it's made in New Zealand (with our "clean green" image on the international stage)?

If it were to move to China, it'd just be another plastics brand competing against many others.

What's clean and green about plastic these days?

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#2065265 30-Jul-2018 20:23

Were the Sistema employees moved to 60 hour a week contracts or did they know what they were signing up for?

If you're a low skilled assembly line drone doing the same thing over and over again, what exactly is making you deserve more than the minimum wage? Are you single handedly and visibly increasing productivity and production output to deserve an increase??

tdgeek

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#2065267 30-Jul-2018 20:25

Geektastic:
Benjip:

Those saying "move production to China", are you aware that one of the major success factors of the Sistema brand (and its products) is that it's made in New Zealand (with our "clean green" image on the international stage)?

If it were to move to China, it'd just be another plastics brand competing against many others.

What's clean and green about plastic these days?

It could be. I dont know much about plastics, but if they made plastics that can be re melted and re used, they can make plastic in red bins illegal, must go to a recycle bin, and it does get re used here, I gather much recycle bin stuff doesnt actually get recycled. So use these clean green plastics as its illegal to dump them. Throw in a Singapore-like fine for dumping.

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