Cloud Ocean delivers bad news to workers by email

Thursday, 8 August 2019

Christchurch City councillors Glenn Livingstone and Mike Davidson talk about conflict of interest and Cloud Ocean Water. (Video first published in March 2019)

Workers at Cloud Ocean Water got the bad news about losing their jobs by email.

About 160 staff were on Wednesday told production at the Belfast water bottling plant in Christchurch would be 'paused' and operations 'readjusted'.

About 35 jobs are expected to remain and current staff can apply for those positions. No redundancy will be paid to staff who lose their jobs.

Workers leave the Cloud Ocean site in Belfast, Christchurch, after the company announced it proposed cutting 125 jobs.

The bad news came by an emailed letter and many workers only found out when they checked their cellphones for other reasons.

A worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said some workers received the news from other workers.

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'I found out when I caught up with the news about the guy being run over.'

Cloud Ocean Water said it was complying with its legal obligations in 'the restructuring proposal'.

'This includes consultation with staff, and those who leave the company under this proposal will be given four weeks' notice,' a spokesman said.

Staff were informed by email as only one shift was operating at the time and site meetings would be held on August 9 and 12.

'Cloud Ocean Water's priority is to support staff through this period of uncertainty. The company will meet all its financial obligations and other commitments to staff and suppliers.'

The company had no comment on how many of it workers were in New Zealand on work visas.

The emailed letter said the company had invested $70m in the plant but the Chinese Government had imposed stricter foreign exchange management and 'access to working capital has become challenging'.

'This reflects in part, the uncertainty caused by the current trade disputes between China and the United States.'

The inability to get further capital from New Zealand and China-based banks had affected the company's cash flow.

'In order to remain financial and honour commitments to current staff, the company is now forced to significantly reduce costs.'