By Rachel Morton
Workers made redundant from what was once Greytown's largest employer went back to their old factory today, not to work but to try to buy the machines they once operated.
Everything in the Wairarapa clothing factory owned by Lane Walker Rudkin was auctioned to help pay off a $121 million debt.
Everything had to go, from the sewing machines, chairs and tables, to the pie warmer from the lunch room.
Redundant worker Angela Bain says bargains from the auction could help take the sting off the situation.
“I think if some of the girls were able to come away with a machine at a reasonable price then they might feel a little bit better about the whole situation,” she says.
In May, 61 workers were made redundant from the Bouzaid and Ballaben factory, owned by Lane Walker Rudkin.
Between all the workers, they had 900 years of service.
Three months on and those who used to work here are still coming to terms with the factory's closure.
The ex-employees are still owed redundancy money and holiday pay.
They say not being given the chance to buy the machines they used to work on before the auction is yet another disappointment.
The estimated value of the items auctioned today was a $140,000.
Auctioneers said today's takings were well in excess of that.
3 News contacted receivers BDO Spicers who refused to say if that money would go towards the two million dollars still owed to Lane Walker Rudkin workers.
Worker Fiona Watson says the communication from the receivers has been very poor.
“We've had no correspondence with the receivers what so ever,” she says.
“We're just all kept in the dark and then you get money put in your bank accounts and a week later you've got a letter saying what it's for and how much - it's pretty poor.”
Five hundred lots went under the hammer - dozens snatched up by industrial sewing machine companies from Auckland.
The most expensive item was a cloth cutter which sold for $25,000.
Most of the former seamstresses were able to buy a machine so they can start their own alteration businesses - even if the machines they bought were not the ones they had originally hoped for.
3 News