Railways redundancies not certain

Press, 7 November 1984, Page 3

Railways redundancies not certain

The Minister of Railways, Mr Prebble, said yesterday that he was not sure that any redundancies would be needed in the Railways Corporation. He told NZPA that where there was work it was always changing, which had been true throughout the history of the industry. “Provided people are prepared to go where the work is, there is going to be work,” he said. “I am not sure that any redundancies are actually needed.” The president of the National Union of Railwaymen, Mr George Finlayson, said on Monday that the just-finished Railways summit conference was all win-dow-dressing to give Mr Prebble an excuse to implement the full strategy-of the Booz-Allen and Hamilton report. “There was no joy there for the 6000 people who are promised', to go down the road,” Mr Finlayson said. He said Mr Prebble’s speeches to the conference had caused a big rift between the Minister and the union.

"I thought I was listening to George Gair (former Minister of Railways), Prebble’s lines were so familiar.”

Mr Finlayson and the N.U.R. executive boycotted the conference, although N.U.R. members were present.

Mr Prebble said he did

not want to trade personal abuse with Mr Finlayson. He said he believed that not only would Mr Finlayson have made a valuable contribution to the conference but that he would have found it valuable.

One of the things Mr Finlayson would have learned from the conference was that the figure of 6000 redundancies was nonsense, Mr Prebble said.

“That figure is one figure taken from a railway report which is more than a year old and there is nobody in the whole corporation who now believes that.” Asked whether the Government intended to implement the whole Booz-Allen report, Mr Prebble said it “most certainly” did not. "Nor does the corporation. In fact, one of the things that those people who went to the conference discovered was that the corporation does not consider the Booz-Allen report, in the words of the chairman, as Holy Writ. “The corporation is working out New Zealand strategies for New Zealand problems and is using the BoozAllen report just as one source of information.”

Mr Prebble said a number of senior members of the N.U.R. had attended the conference and made a statement on the last day, saying they believed nothing but good could come out of the conference.