P.S.A. ban extended

Press, 13 September 1982, Page 6

P.S.A. ban extended

PA Timaru The Twizel sub-branch of the Public Service Association has extended its bans on the upper Waitaki power project and is now preventing the removal of houses as well as earth-moving machinery. The bans have been enforced because P.S.A. members want definite proposals from the Ministry of Works and Development on the future redeployment of 240 staff and redundancy agreements now that the upper Waitaki power project is beginning to wind down, the

chairman of the sub-branch, Mr Russel Tait, said. After a recent meeting of members, it was decided that P.S.A. staff would not disconnect the services to about 37 houses that were due for relocation by the Housing Corporation to Christchurch, Timaru and other centres. Two weeks ago, the subbranch placed a ban on the sale of surplus heavy earthmoving machinery from the site. It was supposed to be sold at' auction in Christchurch last Friday. The sub-branch now in-

tends to hold a stopwork meeting in about a week, and it is hoped that the national secretary of the P.S.A., Mr David Thorpe, will attend. The bans will remain in force until then if nothing is heard from the ministry. Mr Tait said that with the project due to be completed in 1984, members were becoming very concerned that nothing had been decided on redeployment and redundan-’ cies. “We get the feeling that we are being fobbed off and that they want people to simply drift away from their jobs," Mr Tait said.