Dux moves offshore at cost of 50 jobs

Around 50 workers at Dux Industries in Lower Hutt stand to lose their jobs after the company announced last week it would be closing its manufacturing operations by the end of the year.

The company, which makes plastic cisterns, toilet seats, gully traps and pipe fittings, has been in Lower Hutt since 1936 and was locally owned until it was bought out by the French-owned Aliaxis Group two years ago.

EPMU organiser Kim Ellis says the company had been downsizing since February but the decision to close was a shock.

“We lost six people in February due to an ongoing copper shortage but the company said it was committed to keeping manufacturing here. But with the copper shortage not improving and an increasing amount of their materials imported from overseas the company felt it had to make the move to remain competitive.

“This is just another blow for the Hutt Valley, which has lost hundreds of manufacturing jobs overseas in the last year or so. We’ll be doing what we can to find our members new jobs, but to good jobs like these go overseas is a real loss to the community.”

Over the last year the Hutt Valley has seen redundancies or closures at South Pacific Tyres, Southward Engineering, Exide, Colgate and Alto Plastics.