Union gains reprieve for laid-off workers

Press, 13 November 1985, Page 7

Union gains reprieve for laid-off workers

The Workers’ Union has gained extra time for about 85 workers on job schemes with the Lands and Survey Department. The workers had been given a week’s notice on Monday..

The South Island secretary of the union, Mr Andy McFarland, said that the union placed the matter in dispute in accordance with the disputes procedures in the State sector, and under that system the status quo had to prevail for one month. The workers had been advised at a meeting in Christchurch yesterday to continue to report for work until the dispute was resolved, said Mr McFarland. A spokesman for the Minister of Employment, Mr Burke, said from Wellington that the Minister had instructed the Labour Department to continue subsidies for the workers until November 22 while the matter was investigated. This means that the Lands and Survey Depart-

ment will have to pick up the tab for the balance of the month from November 22 to keep paying the workers in order to comply with the status quo of keeping the workers engaged. About 90 Project Employment Programme workers attended yesterday’s meeting in Christchurch and they marched after the meeting to both the employment office of the Labour Department and to the Lands and Survey Department office. The member of Parliament for Sydenham, Mr Jim Anderton, attended the meeting and undertook to take up the case with Mr Burke.

Mr McFarland said that the workers who had been given notice needed more time than just a week. The Lands and Survey Department had admitted that socalled temporary workers had been kept on the work force for up to seven years, so it was reasonable for more recently engaged workers to presume that

they might have job security and to plan their commitments accordingly. The other point was that it now seemed the Lands and Survey Department should adopt a permanent workforce to do the tasks which it had used temporary workers for. A spokeswoman for the Labour Department in Wellington said that no directive had been sent from head office to the Christchurch district office instructing the district officers to “clamp down” on public bodies which were re-engag-ing P.E.P. workers after their initial six-month term. The initiative must have come from the Christchurch office, acting within the criteria of the scheme, she said.

The spokeswoman was not aware of any cases in other centres. P.E.P. workers had a minimum 13week “job search” period and could be taken back on a scheme after that period, she said.