Customs staff lose conditions

Press, 13 April 1989, Page 22

Customs staff lose conditions

PA Wellington About 160 customs officers have given up some $500,000 of working conditions so officers in the rest of the department can get a bigger pay rise. It is believed to be the first time such big concessions have been made in achieving a pay settlement in the Public Service. The department’s 930 officers will get a flat $2O a week increase instead of the $ll to $l2 a week that was all the department could have afforded.

The corporate services general manager of Customs, Mr Graeme Ludlow, said . final agreements were reached last week, after initial settlements in February. The delay showed that not all staff had given up their entitlements willingly, he said, in spite of the protracted negotiations to reach the initial settlements. Talks on the Customs part of the State pay round started in September. For most customs officers, earning about

$33,500, the settlement is a 3.1 per cent annual increase. For those earning about $20,000 the flat $2O increase is about 5.1 per cent more. For those on salaries of $42,500 it is a rise of 2.4 per cent. The settlement will add about 2.4 per cent to the department’s personnel vote — but about one-third of that had come from the allowances officers had agreed to forgo at Auckland and Christchurch airports. "We do not know of any other department which

has settled with the P.S.A. where the staff have given up the conditions that they held — and the kind of money that we are talking about here,” Mr Ludlow said. The long-established allowances were brought in to help with travelling and shift expenses, particularly at Mangere Airport when it was built “in the sticks” in the early 19605, Mr Ludlow said. He conceded that workers had fought hard to get allowances that recognised the stresses and

strains they were under. The department was in financial difficulties at the start of the present pay round, and in common with other Government departments had offered a nil pay increase. Unlike most others it had stuck to that line throughout the negotiations. Mr Ludlow said the settlement was “some recognition” of the realities that the department faced in the future. Staff had agreed to forgo the allowances they had enjoyed for years because of that.