The bitter dispute over pay at Kawerau paper mill has revealed a deeper problem. The foreign owners of the mill and the town that relies on it have grown apart.
Bay of Plenty Times reporting developments in the Kawerau mill lockout. Photo: RNZ Mediawatch
"Uncle Tasman is here no longer," says Kawerau mayor Malcolm Campbell.
He's talking to The Detail about the impact of the lockout at the toilet paper factory in the Bay of Plenty town, now in its fifth week and affecting 145 workers.
Both sides have been in talks to end the pay dispute that has dragged on for months but so far there is no resolution. The workers want a rise to match annual inflation of 7.3 percent, but the mill's Swedish owner Essity is offering three percent a year for the next three years plus a lump sum of $4,500.
The lockout has brought back bad memories in the town of the last one in 1986 that lasted three months, and that worries Campbell who has lived all his 69 years in the town he calls the kingdom of Kawerau.
"If you've got two people who are disagreeing on something and a whole lot of emotions involved you actually end up with a stalemate and then you get all sorts of people taking sides, it's not good for anybody and it's certainly not good for the community.
But the town needs Essity in more ways than one. It is a big employer and it is a big ratepayer.
After the 1986 experience Campbell won't take sides, saying the situation is complicated but he agrees that the owners and managers of Essity are removed from the town. They don't live there, they don't shop there, they don't have anything to do with the families of the workers.
That's different to some of the previous owners and managers connected to the three mills that once operated in the town. For example John Spencer, once New Zealand's richest man and founder of the Caxton mill in Kawerau lived in the town for a time.
And Tasman Pulp and Paper Mill, started by Sir James Fletcher 70 years ago, was key to a thriving town.
"We all know the old saying Uncle Tasman," says Campbell. "Sporting clubs and that with the connection to the mill would say look, we need this and this and it was all done. Everything happened. If you squealed, Tasman fixed it. Those days are gone and we've known about this for the last 25 years that I've been in local government."
Campbell explains to The Detail what else has changed since the '86 lockout and says Essity's bosses are not the only ones who don't live in Kawerau. Other longtime workers have moved out to neighbouring towns such as Whakatāne and Rotorua to the detriment of the local sporting and social clubs and business.
He says locked out workers are getting plenty of community support including food but he fears the financial pressure will "smoke them out, soften them up so much that they'll say, oh hell, alright, we give up".
"Being locked out is terrible," says Bill George who has worked at the mill for more than 20 years. He says the action was a shock even though Essity had warned the workers.
"My wife said, oh what are you doing home and I said, we've been locked out, they've discontinued our cards and we can't get through the door," says George, who is the main income earner and supports two disabled grandchildren living with them.
The family has put mortgage and other payments on hold but he and his wife Dixie worry about where they will find the money for the monthly payments for special diabetic medication and other costs for the grandchildren.
"It's dreadful but what can you do? You just pray, you know, but as long as you've got food on the table and clothes on your back and, what do they say, your health is your wealth, anything else can be replaced but your life can't."
George has worked his way up through the ranks to be a supervisor on the machine that produces Purex toilet paper. The mill also makes Sorbent, Libra and Handee products.
When he is the lead hand his job is to watch the chemicals are at the correct levels.
"If you don't get it right it can actually explode, it can take out anything up to 150 metres, blow it clean to smithereens."
Despite the bitter dispute that will have a lasting impact on the relationship between the workers and the bosses, George says he is grateful to the different owners that he has worked for.
"The mill has paid for my kids' schooling, put them through university, my son has his PhD up in Auckland and the mill has helped pay for that."
George recalls family days organised by the mill and Christmas hampers.
"The mill's always been good to us but the last company (Essity), the management.... we've just had no goodwill."
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