P.S.A. steps up action

Press, 17 April 1980, Page 6

P.S.A. steps up action

Members of the Public Service Association in the Christchurch offices of the Inland Revenue Department will vote today oh a recommendation by their delegates that they call for more permanent workers to be appointed to the Christchurch offices. This comes after the association’s criticism of the proposed use of temporary workers by the department in Christchurch.

It is part of the associiation’s continuing attack on the Government’s “sinking lid” policy. In 1976 the Government froze staff levels as at February 28 and these became the staff ceiling. The Government then said that those frozen levels must be further reduced by 1.5 per cent each year. Each head of a department has the responsibility of deciding priorities within his department, while complying with the “sinking lid” policy..

If a work load in a department is increased by legislative or other action, the permanent head of the department can apply for special permission for extra staff. ... The latest issue of the P.S.A. “Journal” asserts that

the effects of the policy are unfair and uneven. The “Journal” asserts that staff are becoming angry and alienated, are being forced to work excessively hard and do too much overtime, and that some departments try to use contract labour, “The Temporary Employment Programme completes the political hypocrisy. At the same time that the Government is trying to reduce the size of the Public Service, it is employing more and more T.E.P. workers,” the “Journal” says. “But the T.E.P. scheme is bad employment. It embodies • some of the worst features of wage labour: no job security, insufficient opportunity for effective union recruitment and membership, no effective personal grievance procedures, and no apparent employer against whom legal redress may be sought.”

The “Journal” says that the battle against the “sinking lid” policy is the same as that against temporary workers being denied permanent jobs. It urges members to organise and protest through their job delegates and to send deputations to members of Parliament.