Clyde Dam project an election issue

Press, 28 October 1981, Page 6

Clyde Dam project an election issue

The Public Service Association and the Workers’ Union are making an election issue out of the Government’s policy to contract out a big hydro-electric project to private contractors. The president of the P.S.A., Mr D. H. Thorp, said in Christchurch yesterday that implicit in the Government’s decision to contract out the Clyde Dam project was the abandonment of the manpower resources of the Ministry of Works over a period of time. Tenders for the Clyde Dam are expected to be called from private contractors early next year. Already skilled workers were moving out of the Ministry to go into other fields or overseas and this resource would be a loss to the country and would .have to be replaced at a social cost to the country, Mr Thorp said. Millions of dollars would

be involved in extra costs by putting the Clyde Dam up for private contract, he said. Quoting from the annual report of the Ministry of Works, Mr Thorp said that a study on costs of running plant showed that the Ministry was 7 per cent cheaper than private contractors. Private contractors would have high interest rates, about 20 per cent, in financing their work, he said. A third factor was the extra cost in employing manpower, whereas the Ministry already had a skilled workforce with experience on hydro projects, and the Ministry had enjoyed industrial harmony with its work force, he said.

Private contractors would have to contend with certain establishment costs in recruiting its staff and might have to bring people in from overseas, he said.

Mr D. J. Duggan, national secretary of the ; Workers’ Union, said that the Federation of Labour, to; which the union was affiliated,’! had made it clear that the dismantling of the Ministry would not be tolerated.! “What we are fighting is casualisation, because that is what private contracting is about, and casualishtion leads to job insecurity! and loyalty of your staff goes out the door.” Mr Duggan sfeid. Mr Thorp said that’ the Ministry was already scaling down its work force by attrition. ; 1 Delegates from hydro construction projects througnout New Zealand attended a conference at the Hornby Trust Hotel yesterday and discussed ways to prevent!the Government from lettingrout the building of the Clyde Dam to the private sector.