P.S.A. says staff waiting for advice

Press, 26 February 1987, Page 5

P.S.A. says staff waiting for advice

JENNY LONG

By

Some State servants have lodged applications for new jobs in State corporations and waited four months to have their applications assessed, says the regional secretary of the Public Service Association, Mr John McKenzie.

“The Government wants to lay people off, and is trying to make people leave,” he alleged. Mr McKenzie said that

there was now no truth in the Government’s original statement that no jobs would be lost because of restructuring. He was responding to the Government announcement that employees would be given six months notice on April 1 if they were surplus to staffing levels of the new corporations and had not chosen retraining, early retirement, leave without pay, or voluntary redundancy.

Many of those who had been waiting to hear the results of their applications had lodged applications for the Forestry and Conservation departments, said Mr McKenzie.

“Only last Monday we had representation from people in the Forest Service. They were lodging ‘bitter complaints’ about the uncertainty because they did not know what they would be doing with March 31 looming,” Mr McKenzie said.