Unions ban on Blundstones

AUSTRALIA'S most powerful construction union has vowed to boycott Blundstone work boots if the company shifts overseas.

The CFMEU – which represents almost half a million manual labourers – will unveil its campaign later today to stop Blundstone’s management from moving offshore.

“The majority of Australia’s 500,000 construction workers were proud to wear Blundstones, knowing they were supporting a great Australian company,” CFMEU national secretary Dave Noonan said.

“All that would be put at risk if Blundstone takes the low cost road to off-shoring production.”

Blundstone manager Steve Gunn said yesterday 300 staff at the company’s Hobart manufacturing plant would be given the boot as the company seeks to make cheaper footwear in India and Thailand.

Mr Gunn said the company could no longer afford to keep making the boots in Australia.

"Since 2003, we have not being able to pass the price increases -- fuel increases, inflation and labour-- on to the consumer," he said.

"If we had not made this decision, the market would have determined Blundstone boots irrelevant in a relatively short period of time."

The business, still owned by one of the original founding families, has been fighting high production costs for decades.

Increasing labour costs and falling footwear tariffs have already pushed many of Blundstone's Australian manufacturing competitors off-shore.

Mr Gunn said research showed buyers wanted value for money rather than Australian-made, and cheaper Asian labour could make the boots for dollars less.

"We are a work boot," he said. "We are a Hobart brand, not a Paris brand.

"Most people think Blundstone boots are made overseas already."

The legendary brand was founded in Hobart in 1870 and produces about a million pairs of boots a year.

Blundstone is the latest big Australian company to announce it will move all its boot manufacturing operations overseas.

The historic company yesterday announced it would close its boot manufacturing factory in Hobart.

As well as its plant at Moonah in Tasmania, Blundstone will also close its manufacturing operations and warehouses in New Zealand and China within nine months.

A distribution warehouse in Melbourne will remain open for now.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,2...016-661,00.html

I've always worn Blundstones on the basis that they were Australian made.

Never again.

Just watched it on skynews. Australia is a fkn sellout.

yeah but what if they were struggling vs cheaper competition?

If they had to go they had to go.

Very tuff to compete with amazingly cheap labor costs from Asia...

Not good, but at least they are still Australian owned.

Better an Australian owned company remain alive than become extinct because all of their competitors are not only manufactured overseas, but are foreign owned.

I know a lot of people that have always uesd Blundstone until recently because they are just too dear. The cheaper ones even copy the Blundstone designs so they look the same.

Yeah I suppose it's only 300 people and there families that are now without an income that have worked in a company that's been in operation in this country for 137 years, I guess that as long as it's not happening directly to one of us it's OK.

Didn't the goverment give 1.6 Billion dollars to the textile industry to stop out sourcing of labour??

Chooka

Absolute f*cking disgrace

It won't be long before all we have is primary industry and are buying all finished goods from overseas....but then the vehicles that we all drive would be coming from OS if it weren't for the massive government handouts.

And who does the goverment think is going to have money to buy products in australia when all the manufacturing jobs have gone overseas. This goverment sucks. Any imports brought in should be taxed at a higher rate to minimize the differnce btw australian made and overseas made.

It jobs,manufacturing jobs all going overseas at this rate these third world countries will make us into a third world country.

Poor buggers. Why is this still happening. Why isnt the Government doing more. Its so hard to find an aust made product these days

It's a shame that another Aussie icon is going overseas, but it was going to happen eventually. I worked in the footwear industry from 78 to 88 in the plastics side and at that time the industry was huge. It began to go out the back door when the govt. announced tarriff reductions on imports. The worst part was that other countries kept there import tarriffs in place, so the aussie footwear manufacturers were immediately at a disadvantage and its been a steady decline for a long time. Im actually surprised that Blundstone lasted as long as they did as all of the other major players in the market were gone long ago. Unfortunately, the last thing Tassie needed was one of there major employers shutting down. I feel for the people who will become unemployed, but I dont see how boycotting Blundstone is going to fix it. Anything else you buy will be imported anyway and probably wont be Aussie owned. If you cant buy Aussie made, the next best thing is at least to buy Aussie owned. Just my 2 cents worth.

Cheers

Jeff