Unions attack round of job losses

Unions have attacked a number of announcements of job cuts across the country.

Following dairy giant Fonterra's decision to lay off 300 workers at three of its plants, St John Ambulance has said it is to change its operations with the loss of up to 80 jobs.

Te Wananga o Aotearoa, the tertiary institution forced to restructure after a series of scandals and financial problems, also confirmed yesterday that it expects to cut as many as 300 jobs.

Fonterra's affected workers cut and wrap cheese at sites in Dunedin, the Auckland suburb of Panmure and one of its plants in Eltham, Taranaki. The work will be transferred to one remaining Eltham plant where automation was being introduced.

The Dairy Workers' Union said it was upset at the decision. It was briefed about the cuts two months ago and had come up with a plan to keep more of the workers employed, national secretary James Ritchie said.

"We put forward a proposal, after looking at the information that Fonterra provided, to keep some production at Panmure and South Dunedin, albeit scaled down production, which we believe would have protected or would have saved 120 jobs," he told National Radio.

Meanwhile, St John Ambulance said today that a move to centralise its administration in Auckland could lead to jobs being lost in human resources, marketing, education, and corporate services.

St John chief executive Jaimes Woods said the changes aimed to cut down on duplication of jobs across the country. Front-line ambulance officers were not affected by the restructuring and could ultimately benefit from it, he said.

He said the restructuring would see about 80 jobs cut around the country, but this would be offset by the creation of 60 new jobs, with a number of these probably based in Auckland.

However, unions representing St John staff said that the restructuring plans were secretive and a month-long consultation period "woefully inadequate".

National secretary of the National Distribution Union (NDU), Laila Harre, told National Radio today that the union was not satisfied that the restructuring would not affect front-line officers.

The union was only given details of the "very substantial" changes to the service five days ago, she said. There had been "absolutely no input" by front-line staff.

"While a number of support roles are being removed from the regions, St John will continue to have a pretty top-heavy regional management and governance structure," Ms Harre said.

Fonterra's general manager of secondary processing Rupert Soar said the union put forward a proposal to enlarge the factory being considering in Eltham. "We'll be working closely with the union over the next few weeks to explore that," he said.

He added: "As long as the staff are prepared to relocate there are some good opportunities within the business. Redundancy is always a last option."

- NZPA