Prison labour at centre to cease

Press, 7 December 1978, Page 6

Prison labour at centre to cease

The Christchurch Arts Centre will not be supplied with prison labour while the dispute over the sacking of two boilermen at the centre continues, according to the South Island advocate for the Engine Drivers’ Union (Mr G. G. Walker).

Mr Walker said that the centre had had “many thousands of man hours of work” 5 done by people from the Pre-) ventive Detention Centre. Ash representative of the Trades 5 Council at the centre, he would get in touch with the Labour and Justice departments today to ask that this' source of labour be stopped: while the boilermen’s jobs were in dispute. "We believe that prison labour has been engaged ini maintenance work that the) Arts Centre has not had to! pay for. Their attitude to the ■ trade union movement is to I sack the only two workers they employ, before Christ-, mas.” said Mr Walker.

The Arts Centre, however,! has offered to negotiate redundancy for the whole; period the two men have been employed on the site — by the centre, the University of Canterbury and rhe Christchurch Technical Institute—-

even though the men have been employed by the centre for only two years. The Arts Centre has issued dismissal notices to the two boilermen because, it says, it cannot afford to keep the coal-fired boilers running. The general manager of the Arts Centre (Mr B. Riley) i said that only one job was in dispute as one of the men was due for retirement. He said that the other boilerman I was required to attend the 5 boiler for the eight months lit was lit. In the other four : months, one month was given ;over to survey, one month was leave, and the remaining , two months were paid at ’ time-and-a-half, when there

! was no work, nor was attendance required. Of the 17 staff at the centre, the boiler staff received the highest pay. With redundancy payments added to their holiday and other pay, they would have

“a very comfortable Christmas indeed.” said Mr Riley.i The Arts Centre has; asserted that the boiler is| uneconomical, but Mr Walker! challenged the centre’s] figures. He said that the latest figures from the West Coast showed the cost of heating the D.B. Westport Hotel by coal was a quarter of the cost of heating the j D.B. Haast Hotel by electricity.

“As far as heating is concerned. Mr Riley is playing | with figures that he cannot substantiate. The total cost I of the operation is much less Than it will ever be charged as far as electricity heating lis concerned,” said Mr Walker.

He said that bv charging the centre's 180 tenants individually for electric heating, as was pronosed, all tenants would suffer a financial loss.