Riccarton redundancies might be avoided

Press, 13 March 1985, Page 9

Riccarton redundancies might be avoided

Four redundancies among Riccarton Borough Council electrical workers may have been avoided after a meeting yesterday between council representatives and the Postmaster-General, Mr Hunt.

The council sought a commitment from Mr Hunt for an increase in underground conversion work in the borough by the Post Office to match its own conversion programme. This was to avoid a reduction in the council’s programme and the resulting loss of jobs.

After the meeting, the Town Clerk of Riccarton, Mr John Skinner, said Mr Hunt had been sympathetic to the council’s request and was anxious to avoid redundancies. Mr Hunt would ask his department to work out a

suitable programme with the council, said Mr Skinner.

In 1972 the council began a 25-year programme to convert overhead lines underground, said the council’s submissions to Mr Hunt. The project was now 65 per cent complete and at the present rate of progress would be finished in six years.

A joint cabling programme between the council and the Post Office was agreed to in 1981 to finish the “State block” area. The Post Office still had many house connections to make before all overhead lines and poles could be removed, said the submissions. The Riccarton Town Centre had been converted as a joint project in the last two years.

The Post Office regional engineer, Mr Jim Harrison, told the council in February that its programme could not be fully matched because of limited staff resources.

Priorities had to be given first to maintaining existing services and then to providing telephones for new subscribers, he said. Conversion of overhead wiring had a low priority, said Mr Harrison. In its submissions to Mr Hunt, the council said its programme had been set largely by technical necessity because of the deterioration of overhead lines and poles. “In addition there are significant cost savings to be made in laying cables and completing underground conversion on a joint basis.

Double disruption and inconvenience to consumers are avoided.”

The jobs of four staff were directly involved if the council’s programme had to be curtailed, said Mr Skinner.

Mr Harrison said yesterday that the Post Office would need more staff to match the council’s programme. "We have to train the staff and supervise them. Over the last few months we have taken on a number of new recruits to keep up with our work,” he said.

Mr Harrison said the Post Office had certain resources and had to allocate them in order of priority. He was not prepared to comment further until hearing what happened at yesterday’s meeting.