Railways to take on 62 apprentices

Press, 19 August 1983, Page 1

Railways to take on 62 apprentices

PA Wellington The Railways Corporation board has reconsidered its decision not to take on apprentices next year, and will now engage 62. There will be no intake of career juniors, said the chairman of the corporation, Mr L. M. Papps, last evening. He also said that Labour’s transport spokesman, Mr R. W. Prebble, had been “by and large right” when he told the Railway Officers’ Institute conference in Wellington yesterday that railways would require a 2500 reduction in staff when it loses the legal protection of the 150 km road transport limit.

After yesterday’s board meeting, Mr Papps said that the apprenticeship change had been at the request of the Minister of Railways, Mr Gair, and his Cabinet colleagues. Fifty of the apprentices would be placed in workshops and 12 in the ways and works branch where they would be apprenticed to the electrical trade for subsequent training in signals maintenance.

Last year’s intake was 176.

Mr Papps said that the corporation had not changed its mind about career juniors because apprenticeships was the area which seemed to have caused the most public concern. This year 93 juniors were engaged, and from 1978 until 1982 the numbers were about even — 220 juniors and 224 apprentices in 1982,

269 apprentices and 253 juniors in 1981, and 281 apprentices and 240 juniors in 1980.

The Railway Officers’ Institute’s secretary, Mr Gordon Wilson, could not be reached last evening but the National Union of Railwaymen’s secretary, Mr Don Goodfellow, said that the decision was only a drop in the bucket.

“I suppose the corporation’s done enough for them to say they’ve taken some notice of the criticism, but I don’t think it’s going to solve much,” he said.

Mr Papps said union criticism that lack of a waggon maintenance programme, uncertainty about the future of long-distance passenger services, and a marked slowdown in staff turnover already meant the corporation would have trouble finding work for existing apprentices was justified “to some extent.” Work would be found,

mainly as electricians and mechanical and electrical fitters.

He said that the corporation had said the no apprentices decision applied only to the 1984 intake and would be reviewed next year. “We decided to bring forward part of the 1985 intake,” he said.

What happens next year will depend on the economy and the corporation’s success in holding its volume of freight traffic, said Mr Papps. The forecast fall of 18 per cent would mean a 2500 staff reduction, and as Mr Prebble said, this could not be achieved by attrition. When it had' been thought the freight loss would be about 12 per cent the corporation thought redeployment, retraining and attrition would absorb the loss of jobs.

“We thought we could handle about 1700 that wqy, but not 2500, that’s too hard,” Mr Papps said. However, Mr Prebble had no grounds for saying that redundancies would be brutal.

People who could not be retrained or redeployed would be asked to accept voluntary redundancy. “They’ll get the going rate in private industry — four weeks for the first year and then two weeks for the next 19.

“A person with 20 years service would get 42 weeks pay, 5 per cent of which is tax — there’s nothing brutal about it.”

The corporation was also trying to ensure that members of the Government superannuation scheme did not lose their superannuation benefits and only get back their savings.

If the Government decided to cut long-distance passenger services a further 800 to 900 jobs would be lost.

Although Mr Prebble had asserted that the decision had been made, it had not, said Mr Papps.