Tissue paper giant Essity and Australian packaging and recycling business Visy have been unable to agree terms for new deals with Kiwi workers, Yahoo News raports.
At its plant in Kawerau, New Zealand, around 145 mill workers have been locked out.
According to Yahoo News, the mill produces roughly 70 per cent of New Zealand's toilet paper.
-Our opinion is that the union's wage demands are so important that, in the long run, it risks local jobs. Our employees in Kawerau currently earn almost double the median wage for factory workers in New Zealand,” Essity's press manager Per Lorentz told the Swedish magazina Dagens Industri.