Rubbish men lay-offs suggested to cut costs

Press, 10 May 1984, Page 9

Rubbish men lay-offs suggested to cut costs

Some rubbish collection staff redundancies may be the price of the Christchurch City Council retaining its refuse collection service instead of using private contractors.

Works and traffic committee members said yesterday that $90,000 should be cut from the last financial year’s collection costs of $708,317.

Ways such a savings might be achieved were discussed in committee after dust and refuse division workers appealed to councillors to keep a collection method they said was serving the public well. In the latest of council officer reports on the issue over recent years, retention of the council’s own collection staff was again favoured.

But the report said that significant economies could be made to make the service more competitive with ones run by contractors. Negotiations about such economies, which would almost certainly include some lay-offs, should be held with the staff, it said. “We are faced with a pretty serious attack on our own working conditions and livelihoods,” said one rubbish collector, Mr John Lee. Jobs had been under a very serious and open threat in the last few months because of statements made about the possibility of hiring contractors, he said.

“Now we are being asked to negotiate to do ourselves out of jobs, either in whole or in part,” said Mr Lee. This was being done at a time when the workload

was increasing, he said. Mr R. A. Lowe, secretary of the Canterbury subbranch of the Labourers’ Union, said he was concerned that discussion of possible savings should be done in committee. “It seems to me there are going to be cuts of some sort regardless of discussions,” he said.

After the 1982 negotiations with the labourers and drivers’ unions, a change in collection procedures was made, reducing the council’s rubbish staff to 40 and resulting in a saving of $62,000 in the last financial year.

That agreement to reduce vehicles and manpower was due for review late last year, but the review was deferred while another report on possible contract collections was prepared. When the council started its present collection procedures in 1972, it had nine collection rounds and 45 staff members. There are now eight collection rounds. Mr Lowe said there would be “grave doubts” about the council’s policy of creating more employment if it was considering cutting some of its permanent work staff. Some councillors yesterday said the chopping of $90,000 from the refuse collection budget was the wrong way to start negotiations.

“There is no point in negotiating at all if what you are going in with is an ultimatum,” said Cr David Close. He said the procedure was “a bit like putting the gun to the unions’ head before negotiations start.” His motion to increase

the collection budget to $700,000 — only $BOOO lower than was actually spent last year — and seek savings from there through negotiations was lost on a 5-4 vote, with the committee chairman, Cr Maurice Carter, using his casting vote to break a tie. Cr Alex Clark said he was pleased to see the council officers “to all intents and purposes have said the council should continue with its own collection.” Cr Mollie Clark said the proposed savings were “a case of picking on workers at the end of the line, when we all know if there is any slack, it is much higher up.” There had been praise, not complaints, about the council’s service. Collectors had got rubbish bags off the streets early in the day. Staff morale had been good, and had only been undermined by certain rash statements, she said. Cr Matthew Glubb said that if the refuse collection system could be shown to be competitive, he believed a good comparison between it and other alternatives would continue. “So really the ball is in the court of all of us.” If the council’s service remained competitive, many of the fears expressed at the meeting might never be realised, he said. Council officers collected data from other local bodies, some with contractors and others with day labourers. All systems used rubbish bags. The City Council’s present system involved lighter daily workloads than for workers elsewhere, except

in Paparua County, which used only one truck a day, said a staff report.

“The critical factors to be compared are the work load of the personnel collecting the bags, and the annual costs of collection compared to total weight collected, or per unit served,” said the report. In Christchurch, the cost per residential unit served each year was $11.83, compared with a range of $7.74 to $14.31 for local bodies with private contractors and $7.93 to $9.81 for those using their own labourers.

Such factors as distance to disposal sites, density and type of residential development, type of bag used, climate, and terrain all influenced rubbish collection costs, said the report.

From information recently obtained about contract costs it did not seem they would be cheaper than those that could be achieved by council staff. The most practical way to pay contractors would be on a per tonne basis, since there would be weighbridges at each refuse station.

That method encouraged contractors to pick up nonregulation bags and other items that would not be collected normally. “The council would meet the full cost of this additional material disposal,” said the report, “which is likely to add about 10 per cent to collection costs if not rigidly policed.” The City Council could also face a redundancy bill of about $190,000 if it laid off its staff, it said. But there were good grounds for achieving savings in the present collection system. If they were not possible, then some form of contract collection should be considered. Recycling Additional rubbish disposal savings will be made this year with the virtual scrapping of the council’s remaining recycling services. When the Bexley tip is closed later this year as the metropolitan landfill site takes over, the tip’s resource recovery centre — which cost the council $lOO,OOO last financial year — will be closed.

In addition, no money has been recommended for the suburban skip scheme which has been in use for some years. It cost $84,827 last year.

Moves to retain those suburban services were defeated by the committee. “We are doing away with recycling completely,” said Cr Kathie Lowe. “It is a backward step for the city.”