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The Bradken foundry in Hillside Rd, South Dunedin. Photo by Gregor Richardson.
The Bradken foundry in Hillside Rd, South Dunedin. Photo by Gregor Richardson.
Bradken could shut its Dunedin foundry by the end of the year - affecting almost 40 workers - but staff may have to get through a lot of work in the meantime.

"Workers have been told their jobs are finished in November but we’ve got all this work coming through," said one worker, who declined to be identified.

He was worried they might need to rush to hit deadlines.

"We push our a... and we get no thanks for it. And now they’re closing us."

Bradken has not declared emphatically that the Hillside Rd foundry will close.

However, in a statement issued on July 15, the company said closure at both Dunedin and Ipswich, Queensland, was the most likely outcome.

The company indicated it would welcome interest from possible buyers.

Chief executive Simon Linge said Bradken would focus on the mining sector and move away from being a diversified manufacturing company.

"Moving away from these markets we have served for a long time was not a decision that was made lightly," Mr Linge said.

"We understand the impacts it has on our people, many of whom have been part of Bradken for a long time, and we are committed to supporting them to make this transition and take the next steps in their working lives."

Bradken has operated in Dunedin for 56 years.

Thirty-seven staff work at the Hillside Rd foundry and two more employees are sales people in Christchurch.

Work would be "ramped down" in Dunedin in the next five months, the company said in its statement.

In 2012, KiwiRail put the Hillside Engineering Group on the market, Bradken buying part of it.

Last year, the Government announced it would pump $20 million into the Hillside workshops to revitalise them.


 

Comments

This is becoming a severe recession leading to an economic depression. Time to buckle up, reduce all unnecessary costs for the family, business or country level. Shame, local and central government just spends our taxes willy nilly. Their ability to do a simple cost benefit with their decisions is greatly lacking.

"Last year, the Government announced it would pump $20 million into the Hillside workshops to revitalise them" - so much for that when Bradken is shutting up shop there.

I think that would be more targeted at the KiwiRail heavy lift at Hillside, rather than a private business located in the complex.

From Wikipedia...
'Bradken is a manufacturer and supplier of differentiated consumable and capital products to the mining, transport, general industrial and contract manufacturing markets with operations in Australia, China, England, New Zealand and the United States. It is a subsidiary of Hitachi Construction Machinery'.
Just like Cadbury, Tiwai, all the big banks, and the dozens of other foreign owned companies, do we even own anything anymore?