Haven't thought this one thru yet, but is boycotting "Bonds" and "Pacific Brands" products a way to send a message to Corporate Australia that if you ship Aussie jobs OS, we stop buying your product?

What do people think?

grumplestiltskin said...

Only trouble with that Hardsio is that all (well most of) the other brands come from overseas anyway.

So you are gonna boycott one overseas company to buy product from another?

I think you will find that the product loyalty which they enjoyed from being a local manufacturer will now disappear and customers will say one pair of Chinese jocks looks the same as another.

Probably not the brightest move in the current economic climate, decisions were most likely made and contracts signed back last year when the Aussie dollar was so strong. With the AUD turned to crap they have just had a 30% price increase bite into their lovely proposed profit increase from moving the manufacture of shore.

Working for a Aussie manufacturer and exporter all I can say is "eat sh1t and die"

Time will tell if they made the right choice, personally I think it will backfire on them

Large banks have all outsourced IT to India, boycott them too.
And so on.

Hardie, I think you share the sentiments of many Australians in reacting against textile jobs going off shore. I wonder, though, whether it is entirely fair to throw all our frustration onto Bonds/Pacific just because they are the last to do so? Perhaps our frustration would be better focussed at encouraging governments, state and federal, Liberal and Labor, to forster an environment where textile companies can compete whilst using local labour. I am, however, surprised that being the last they couldn't turn that into a marketing advantage. I'm sure I would react well to a campaign where they interviewed Australian textile workers - how Aussie would that be??

That's free trade. Manufacturers are free to find the cheapest labour. However labour is not free to follow the manufacturers.

For windsurfing kit I think we can get everything OEM from Oz sources except masts. However nearly all the materials are sourced os. I'm not sure that its wise to play that game. The guys that get the work os are by and large needy folk. That's why they are cheap. I would be much more keen on a scheme that extracted wealth from those obscenely overpaid parasite executives that take millions of dollars just to quit. I think it makes much more sense to kill them. I suppose there must be some pragmatic objection to that but I think it would be popular.

mineral1 said...

paddymac said...

Hardie, I think you share the sentiments of many Australians in reacting against textile jobs going off shore. I wonder, though, whether it is entirely fair to throw all our frustration onto Bonds/Pacific just because they are the last to do so? Perhaps our frustration would be better focussed at encouraging governments, state and federal, Liberal and Labor, to forster an environment where textile companies can compete whilst using local labour. I am, however, surprised that being the last they couldn't turn that into a marketing advantage. I'm sure I would react well to a campaign where they interviewed Australian textile workers - how Aussie would that be??

According to media,the Government gave them a huge boost not long back, to the tune of 14 mil or so. That's why the majority of Ministers and back benches have voiced the disapproval with the closure and the salary awards to top level in the Company. That 14 mil came out of our collective tax pockets

They obviously deserve to be killed then [}:)]

There are guarantees. Guarantees said companies will contribute to their re-election next time. Guarantees of board retainer jobs when they retire from politics, and so on.

jeez you guys-get with it.
everybody talks the talk but NOBODY WALKS THE WALK.
You all say you will buy Australian but 95% of people DONT GIVE A F++K when it comes to price.
Does anyone want to go back to the days of the government paying huge tariffs to prop up unviable businesses (YOUR tax dollars?). Sympathy aside, when I saw the footage of the workers leaving I saw mostly asians- while its entirely possible that they are australian born and bred, my guess is that many have recently migrated here for the greater wage and now its fallen in a hole.

Remember that if we dont buy foreign goods they wont buy our resources. Its a global village.

Buy Oz owned , designed and manufactured. If you can't buy Oz manufactured at least buy OZ owned and designed.
It,s our desire to save a few cents by buying the import over the local that causes the problem. Next time you buy something look at the label. If we all did that we wouldn't see sacked workers on the telly!!!!

Arnold, thanks for the U-tube link
Following on from that whats the go with the Government and defence force ripping cash out of the pockets of diggers overseas by reducing wage packages.
The diggers are on crap wages as it is, and to do this is criminal
(Sorry Hardie, bit off topic but this kind of thing p1zzes me off

Interesting that we talk of boycotting Bonds when most of us buy Chinese or Thailand produced windsurfing gear over the few local board makers left.

Seemed there was once a thriving Australian windsurfing shaping scene that has very few survivors - maybe we could boycott the big three manufacturers and buy local!

Haven't been on the site for some time but the topic caught my eye. A little of the track again, but how does someone or company allow Sol Trohjio (spelling unsure) - aka Mr Telstra resign and depart with a $30m golden handshake in this economic climate! Surely since he has been CEO he hasn't made that much of a significant difference to the shareholders dividend. I think that all the holders of the T2 share issue should get a deciding vote based on the performance of their shares even prior to the global meltdown.

Jman said...

mr love said...

Buy Oz owned , designed and manufactured. If you can't buy Oz manufactured at least buy OZ owned and designed.
It,s our desire to save a few cents by buying the import over the local that causes the problem. Next time you buy something look at the label. If we all did that we wouldn't see sacked workers on the telly!!!!

We wouldn't have a telly because they all come from China

Seem to remember TVs were made here once too

kato said...

russh said...

Interesting that we talk of boycotting Bonds when most of us buy Chinese or Thailand produced windsurfing gear over the few local board makers left.

Seemed there was once a thriving Australian windsurfing shaping scene that has very few survivors - maybe we could boycott the big three manufacturers and buy local!

Does "Carbon Art" count as local

We once looked at where the clothes we had on where made....only 2 out of 16 people had Aus made clothes on We tend to look at price first instead of quality/where its made etc

Buy Local if possible.
Carbon Art,KA Sails,Time Machine fins,Rip Curl wettys

How do you buy local?
Carbon Art board (I own one)- definitely imported from New Zealand, I don't think we can yet claim NZ as ours yet.
KA Sails (I own some)- manufactured in China
Time Machine Fins-can't afford one.
RipCurl wetsuit (I own one)- manufactured in Thailand.

I think that Australia has let the decline in local manufacturing industries slip beyond the point of no return. It wont be long before we are the new third world country along with our cousins from the USA.

mr love said...

Hi Rush , In my case I have sort of done that.
Last year I was importing Lorch Boards, nice Cobra built boards from a German company. At the same time with my design involvement with KA I was out there telling people they should be supporting OZ developed products like KA. I was a total hypocrite, so decided to call it quits.
I designed some boards and am having them built by some OZ custom builders. Mark Stone of SSD has made me a beautiful Bump and Jump board and my Slalom and Speed Boards being built by Peter Ross of OES should be here this week.
I really can't see myself contemplating an overseas production board again.

Better man than me Mr Love - everything I own is manufactured overseas - and the only thing that has put me off buying local stuff is resale and people bagging some of the gear and in the past access to demo's.

My surfboards have always been locally made but now there are more pop outs undercutting the local shapers as well - and even they are bulk ordering chinese shaped and glassed boards as the overheads are lower or something

Purchase cost is about the same wave board wise and in some cases the AUS boards are more expensive than the like imports

It's hard to do but you must be commended for it - hats off to ya!