Should the Windsurfing Community boycott Bonds

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?

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.

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.