Sackings to be discussed at meeting

Press, 12 November 1985, Page 8

Sackings to be discussed at meeting

About 85 workers who will lose jobs funded by the Labour Department within four days will hold a stopwork meeting in Christchurch this morning. The workers, who are employed by the Lands and Survey Department under the Project Employment Programme, were sacked because of more rigid enforcement of job schemes by the Labour Department. At least 38 of the workers have been on the scheme for more than the allowable six months, and some have been employed for up to seven years. The secretary of the Workers’ Union, which represents P.E.P. workers, Mr Andy McFarland, said that the stop-work meeting would discuss the impact of the sackings on the workers and their families. “We will be looking at measures to relieve them if necessary,” he said. He attributed the lay-off sackings to a lack of understanding between the two departments involved. ? ‘We will give them a prod, if they cannot sort things out, if we have to,” said Mr McFarland. “No way are the workers going to get the dirty end of the deal.” Mr McFarland would be discussing the matter with representatives of the departments today. The Commissioner of Crown Lands, Mr Laurie Kenworthy, said he did not know if there would be replacement schemes implemented by the Lands and Survey Department. “We believe we would still be eligible to employ fresh workers,” he, said. However, the loss of experienced workers could mean that it would be difficult to begin new schemes, said Mr Kenworthy.

“Whether we could do this

without charge hands or roll-over staff is in doubt.” While the Lands and Survey Department was aware that workers -on P.E.P. schemes were exceeding the six-month limit there was nothing underhand in this, he said. “We were aware of this — it was a case of being practical.” Many of the workers had become specialised in working with explosives, fencing, stonemasonry, and walkway maintenance, he said.

“We had provided gainful employment for people who would have otherwise have been unemployed,” he said. The Lands and Survey Department had 38 long-

serving or roll-over P.E.P. staff workers and of the remaining 47 some had been employed for more than six months while others had recently been hired in anticipation of new projects being approved, he said. “We have been told to comply strictly with layingoff after six months and that we must do.”

The Labour Department's acting district superintendent of labour, Mr Neil Buchanan, said that the projects had reached their sixmonth duration and funding had stopped. Further projects could be sponsored if the Lands and Survey Department’s proposals met funding criteria.