No jobs yet for forestry staff

Press, 24 February 1987, Page 2

No jobs yet for forestry staff

Greymouth reporter

About 50 permanent Forest Service staff on the West Coast and 100 wage workers are likely to be without a job when the Government’s new policies on corporations come into effect on April 1, according to predictions of Mr David Eastwood, of Hokitika, the regional coordinator of the West Coast social support committee.

A group of private consultants, commissioned by the State Services Commission, has criticised the Government’s handling of the effects its corporatisation policy will have on the West Coast Messrs Graham Barnes, a human resources consultant Terence O’Callaghan and David Thomas, marketing consultants, and Graeme Wright, a finance consultant prepared the report as the result of a threeday visit in January. They said that after the initial briefing and their first meeting with forestry staff on the West Coast it “became abundantly clear to the team that all investigations should be done with an impartial private

sector point of view, without further reference to Government departments. “It was felt that the Government did not believe that forestry was a major contender in future development of the West Coast This was evidenced by the Blakely report and to date the non-allocation of forests to the new agencies,” the report said.

Mr Eastwood, the coordinator of the social support committee, said yesterday that although the report was written some time ago, there was still much dissatisfaction among the staff involved.-

“There are a number of people who do know exactly what their futures are but, at the end of March there are likely to be about five permanent staff and 100 wage workers from the Forest Service still without work.”

Mr Eastwood said that it was likely that some displaced staff could become involved in setting up their own businesses. Finance totalling $200,000 was available from the Government to carry out feasibility studies into these projects.