Merepeka Raukawa-Tait: Taxpayers end up paying

I don't blame staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for going all out to protect and retain their jobs.

They believe they do a good job and want to stay in work. They have applied pressure and obviously persuasive arguments to their CEO John Allen because there has been an about turn. The proposed restructuring that would have resulted in the loss of 300 jobs has been diluted, although not halted entirely.

There will be some structural change but nothing resembling what was originally proposed and sanctioned by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. No chief executive of any government department or ministry would make substantial staff cuts without informing, and getting buy in, from their minister first.

The last thing a minister wants is to see the ministry on the front page of the daily newspaper, being castigated by staff, for giving them the push.

But it was the Government itself that announced all departments and ministries would need to review their operations with the view to cutting costs. They were prepared to take a hard look at their own expenditure. Now only 70 jobs will go at the Ministry.

I think the CEO should have stuck to his guns and held the line. Maybe he wanted to but someone got cold feet. Anyone in Wellington will tell you Foreign Affairs and Trade was long overdue for restructuring. The CEO would have looked long and hard at the current and future operations of a Ministry working in constrained financial times.

What services are they providing in overseas locations, how well are they doing, and could these services be delivered differently and more cost effectively? That's a review exercise that should happen every year and not just once in a blue moon.

Perhaps the CEO enlisted a cross-section of staff to assist him to undertake the review process. I suspect not. A few senior staff and the usual external change management consultants to provide an independent view. Findings are nicely packaged, distributed to staff and called "consultation".

But Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade staff are not your usual "run of the mill" bureaucrats. The diplomats are intelligent, respected and well informed. By nature of their work they are well connected to those in high places too.

Their offensive to counter the restructuring of their ministry has been well orchestrated and executed.

Perhaps Affco and Ports of Auckland workers should get hold of ministry staff and ask to borrow their lobbying strategy. The only difference between these groups of workers is that one has been successful in getting their boss to back down. Their jobs have been saved.

In New Zealand it's a bad time to be losing your job now. Everyone knows the global financial crisis is biting hard, and will probably do so for a few more years, so why wouldn't workers go all out to hold onto their jobs.

I do think companies have the right to restructure, downsize and disestablish various business units in order to survive. But recent history shows New Zealand has never done a good job when it comes to making structural change in the workplace.

We look at an unhealthy bottom line and decide savings must be made. Rather than taking a critical look and reviewing all areas of operations it's far easier to chop staff. Staff just have to suck it up. But they won't and can't afford to.

Incompetent management continues to operate. The taxpayer will continue to pay the over bloated salary bill for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We'll probably have to foot the wage bill for AFFCO and Ports of Auckland workers shortly too. Without the Ministry's lobbying strategy, jobs will disappear at these companies.

Lost wages for these workers will transfer and be picked up by WINZ. The long suffering taxpayer gets hit yet again.