Sam Sutherland said the decision was 'premeditated.' Photo: RNZ / Delphine Herbert
Hundreds of Smithfield employees have found themselves out of jobs today, after Alliance Group announced it would be closing the country's oldest meatworks.
The company confirmed the closure of the meat processing plant in Timaru, South Canterbury, this morning, which meant about 600 staff have lost their jobs.
Sam Sutherland has worked at Smithfield for 11 years and said the atmosphere before the meeting was ominous.
He believed Alliance had been planning to close the meatworks at the end of the season for some time and did not think declining sheep processing numbers were behind the closure as had been cited by the company.
"I think that's bullshit to be completely honest... it seems very well premeditated, I think it was decided a long time ago from the top and it has just slowly started to roll down when they got all their ducks in a row.
"It is a business, they are all chasing numbers and chasing paperwork and then they were like, 'Oh by the way, at the end of the season there is no more work, ever, closing the doors'."
He said his colleagues had been busy applying for jobs and trying to find work.
"It's definitely been rough, I'm a single dad and it's been school holidays and I've been wondering where the next dollar is coming from, a mortgage and all that sort of stuff."
Corey Arceo. Photo: RNZ / Delphine Herbert
Corey Arceo said he was feeling pretty average after the meeting, during which there was no opportunity to ask questions about the closure.
It was the first time he had been through a redundancy and he said Alliance could have handled it better.
"Coming into it I was thinking, they are not gonna do that to us, we finished work for the season, they told us it was for the season and then on the day we found out that it was not for the season.
"There could have been a little bit more warning or more time for people to sort out things, put pauses on payments and things like that."
As a single man with no children, Arceo said he could move elsewhere for work - but he felt for the number of families where both parents were employed at Smithfield.
Melissa Biggs. Photo: RNZ / Delphine Herbert
Fellow employee Melissa Biggs, who has worked at Smithfield for 16 years, said she had a feeling that the plant would be closed, but the news still came as a shock.
She said the last three weeks since Alliance announced the proposal to close the plant had been stressful.
Philip Lusty. Photo: RNZ / Delphine Herbert
Smithfield worker Philip Lusty, who is nearing retirement age, said the closure of the plant was likely to be the end of his career, but he worried for his younger colleagues.
He said staff were told the plant was closing because it was no longer viable to keep it running and he believed falling sheep processing numbers were a factor.
"I work with a lot of old butchers and we were killing prime stock like a month ago and we all sort of looked at each other and said, we are killing green stock here, so we knew, we had a pretty good idea what was going on.
"I'm OK, I've only got 9 months to go until I retire but it's the ones with the families and the mortgages and the rents, that's who I feel for, and Timaru."
Lusty said the company has 100 jobs available at its Pukeuri plant near Oamaru, and he hoped some of his colleagues would be able to find employment there.
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