Worries About Aviemore Jobs

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31658, 19 April 1968, Page 1

Worries About Aviemore Jobs

Half of the work force of 600 at Aviemore was due to be put off in June because it was expected that the major work there would be completed by then, said the secretary of the New Zealand Workers’ Union (Mr W. A. Dempster) yesterday.

A Workers’ Union deputation had waited on the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) on March 18, and had asked for alternative work for the redundant workers, or for the Government to give rehabilitation plans. So far the union had not received any reply from Mr Holyoake. “We are just as much in

the dark as the workers at Aviemore, where the position is steadily growing more serious each day as D-day approaches,” said Mr Dempster. Sixty Aviemore workers had become redundant in March. Most had been found employment elsewhere but saturation had been reached. He said that both sides of the Waitaki River were being investigated for irrigation schemes which would provide work for men and machines, if the Government was to go on with them. Mr Dempster said that if both the irrigation schemes went ahead, and if the Otematata village was shifted to Twizel as the continuation of the Upper Waitaki hydroelectric development scheme, there would be plenty of work for all men becoming redundant at Aviemore.