Staff worried about future

Press, 29 June 1983, Page 19

Staff worried about future

Clerical staff at Andrews and Beaven, Ltd, and its subsidiary companies in Christchurch, were still unsettled about future employment because of the merger with Repco Corporation NZ, Ltd, said the secretary of the Canterbury branch of the Clerical Workers’ Union, Mrs Doreen Shannon on Monday. The clerical staff held a meeting on Monday, and it was decided to form a consultative committee of union delegates drawn from individual sections, divisions, or branches of the company to work in close liaison with the Clerical

Workers’ Union. The committee would provide a ready-made structure through which the union would work and channel information as it became available about what the future held for employees, she said. However, employees “were not much further along the road” on information about employment in the merged company, Mrs Shannon said. The union was seeking legal opinion because the company had said that redundancy agreements in the award applied only to

Andrews and Beaven, Ltd, and not to its subsidiary companies, Don Agencies, Ltd; R. Buchanan and Sons, Ltd; and Automotive Products Company (N.Z.), Ltd, she said. The union believes that steering committees of senior management are being set up at Andrews and Beaven, MSI Corporation, and Repco New Zealand — the three companies to merge into Repco Corporation NZ — to consider drafting staff levels for each individual company unit within the merged group, such levels being subject to executive decision under the

new company. The information from the steering committees is expected to be available by the end of July, but the matter of naming redundancies is not expected to be made until later. The manager director of Andrews and Beaven, Mr W. B. Beaven, said that he could not comment on the question of steering committees because it was a matter of internal structure of the company and not for publication. “I am not prepared to discuss the internal workings of the company,” Mr Beaven said.