‘Desperate’ situation

Press, 13 June 1978, Page 6

‘Desperate’ situation

The Christchurch public have been urged to bring fi rward any planned building projects so that building ci ntnetors may keep their The president of the Canterbury Mast> Builders and' Joiners’ Association ((Mr W. J. .McFarlane) said that any project, large or small, would nelp the contractors preservei their labour forces and plan’ through a “desperate” situa-l tion. the present work-load of its members continued to de- ( Our association, and Mr J. Clough of the Carpenters' Union, are deeply concerned about the loss of skilled labour within the industry, together with the loss of aswhich once disbanded, will be extremely hard to re-. higher degree of activity.”; were coming from pmspec-

: live clients in the housing! ■ sector, the time between the • inquiry and the actual start [ of the contract was increas-| ’ ing. However, in the commericiai sector there appeared to| I be a reasonable amount ofi work in the planning stage. 1 said Mr McFarlane. "A large contributor ini this area is our own city; council which has advised us| that it hopes to have an esti-! mated SI2M worth of pro- , I jects for tender towards the end of the September quar-. ter, or early in the final, quarter of this year. Once! again, it is a question of the) delay before these projects! "are actually commenced,” he[ I. said. I “We are having lay-offs allj round town.” said Mr • Clough, who is secretary of • the Carpenters’ Union.! I Builders were putting off car-; ■ penters. and apprentices' were also in danger of losing! d their jobs. •; “We implore the Govern-j •nent to inject a bit more! work into the industry, es-j

pecially in Christchurch and Auckland. If the Government decided to give some stimulus it will be late for some sub-sectors of the industry but the longer it leaves it the worse the situation will get,’ ’he said.

The building industry was in a critical state and if it was going to climb out of the slump somerhing must be done smartly, said Mr Clough.