Australia’s last refrigerator factory, the Electrolux plant at Orange in central west NSW, will roll its last fridge off the production line today, after producing about 12 million fridges in its lifetime.

In 2013 Electrolux announced it would close the factory and move production overseas.

The company said they had decided it was more cost effective to make fridges in south-east Asia and eastern Europe.

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General manager Mark O’Kane said not only will the closure be a blow for the town of Orange, but also for Australian manufacturers seeking to compete globally.

The closure means the end of more than 70 years of whitegoods production in the regional city of Orange and the end of an era for Australian manufacturing.

Of the remaining 300 employees at Electrolux’s fridge factory, 210 will have their last day tomorrow, while, 90 will stay on for up to eight months decommissioning the plant.

Gerry DeRooy has worked at the Electrolux fridge factory in Orange for 42 years. Photo: ABC

The Electrolux factory in Orange began in 1942 as a World War Two munitions plant.

When that closed a deal was struck with the company Email Ltd — initially operating as Emmco and Elcon — and a whitegoods factory was born.

From 1946 the factory made household goods including fans, stoves, washing machines and freezers, but more recently it has been fridges only.

At its peak it employed more than 2,000 people and it was during this time the Queen visited it on her 1970 tour.

One of the Electrolux factory’s longest serving remaining employees, Phil Johnston, has seen a lot of changes in fridge making in his 44 years.

“We used to get the steel in black, we used to fold it, paint it, we had our own paint shops here, we used to do chrome plating, anodising, powder coating, we used to do everything here, in house.”

The closure announcement has been a blow for Orange because the plant pumped an estimated $70 million annually into the local economy.

However Mr O’Kane said it also has significance for Australian manufacturers as they seek to compete globally.

“Every major manufacturer in the world is in this south east region, specifically Thailand,” he said.

“They have government support, they have trade-free zones within these industrial parks and of course at the end of the day a labour rate of $2.50 an hour.

“That is really hard to compete against, I’m really fearful for Australian manufacturing.”

‘It’s going to be like leaving part of the family behind’

Mr Johnston said he fears what such factory closures mean for future generations.

“What’s happening is that we’re de-skilling our people,” he said.

“The politicians are now talking about having a smart, people who are going to go into new technology with new businesses, but that’s going to take years to develop and not everybody is going to go to university, because people just don’t have the ability to do that.”

Ron Finch said he has worked at the Electrolux factory for 44 years, and has witnessed major milestones in manufacturing history, including the introduction of computerisation.

“That was quite significant and I remember the general manager realising his factory could stop for want of a barcode label, which was a bit hard to fathom.”

Mr Finch said that not many of the employees were “buoyant about the closure.”

“It’s a profitable factory. The thing that a lot of us feel is just the impact on the town.”

Cheryl Seymour said she has spent nearly three decades at the factory and said it is going to be an emotional farewell.

“We spend a lot of time with these people so it is like a family, so you have this close friendship and close bond and it’s going to be like leaving part of the family behind,” she said.

– ABC