Housing jobs ‘secure’

Press, 26 August 1980, Page 7

Housing jobs ‘secure’

The planned scaling down of the Housing Corporation’s construction division will not result in redundancies, according to the manager of the corporation’s Christchurch office, Mr G. E. Corrie.

The Minister of Housing (Mr Quigley) has said that the activities of the division will be scaled down over three years but that a nucleus staff will be retained to carry out essential functions and to provide a core capable of expansion if required.

Mr Corrie said that the decision affected only 20 people in the Christchurch office and that most of these were draughting staff. One or two of these would retire in the next three years and those who were not retained as part of the nucleus would be found jobs elsewhere.

Mr Quigley said that a joint State Services Commission and Public Service Association working party would be set up to discuss ways of minimising inconvenience to staff. It would discuss redeployment in other departments where appropriate and would assist with any necessary retraining.

Mr H. Davey, chairman of the Canterbury section of the P.SA., said it had “better be true” that there would be no redundancies.

“Any attempt to make people redundant will be met by the sternest opposiBy handing more of its activities to the private section," he said. only paying back National Party supporters for their tor the Government was support. There was no evidence that the policy would

help private industry and the public paid more in the long ran for such moves.