As is not unusual when backed by a media that likes nothing more than pitting company owners against a presumed proletariat, the Pacific Brands lynching continues.
For those outside of Australia, Pacific Brands announced recently it was shutting down its Australian manufacturing plants. The company owns brands such as Bonds, Hard-Yakka and more. It was then disclosed that (ZOMG) the CEO had a pay rise last year along with the board. The Federal Government, along with the media and unions are jumping up and down about how disgraceful the pay is given they are putting of approx. 1800 people.
Here’s the thing. It’s beyond bloody remarkable that the manufacturing was still done in Australia in the first place.
If anything, the board of the company should be praised for keeping the local jobs going for so long when nearly all of their competition shut up shop and moved their plants to China years ago.
The economic reality is that the textile manufacturing in Australia is cost-prohibitive compared to China. We can argue whether that’s fair or not, but the reality is that most of the garments we buy now share one thing in common: they’ll have Made in China stamped on the tag, because it’s multiple times cheaper to make them there instead of here.
If anything, it could be argued that the company was acting irresponsibly in not taking the business off shore years ago.
I feel badly for anyone who has lost their job, but this tall poppy lynching is a crock, and it does nothing to save jobs.
God help us if this is going to be the carry-on when every big company puts of staff in the coming year as Australia finally falls into a recession. I suppose on the bright side, the Australian media will have something to easily write about, given any serious reporting is quickly becoming untenable as they shed staff as well.
