Job cuts at Auckland council and subsidiaries are too drastic

The Public Service Association (PSA) says the scale of job losses at Auckland council was unnecessary and could have been avoided if better use of attrition had been adopted.

“At the beginning of this process we pushed the government to use natural attrition as an alternative to redundancy. We warned that drastic job cuts could leave the council without the capacity it needs. Instead we achieved partial attrition and the consequences are hundreds of forced redundancies,” says PSA National Secretary Richard Wagstaff.

“The question now is, have they gone too far and will the new council organisations be forced to rehire new staff to fill the gaps?

“The Minister for Local Government is talking up the millions of dollars these cuts will shave off the new council’s wage bill but the reality is you can’t cut hundreds of jobs without losing valuable knowledge and experience,” says PSA National Secretary Richard.

“It’s always a dark day when job cuts are announced, especially on this scale. It’s a huge loss of skill, experience and institutional knowledge

“The PSA has run an intensive campaign to retain as many jobs as possible. We began this process at a time when John Banks was predicting 40 percent of jobs would be cut. The actual job losses are now estimated to be 13 percent. If that agenda had played out it would have been devastating for council services.

“That 13 percent is still a huge loss of skills and experience. We’ll be monitoring the new council closely and listening to what our members have to say on staffing levels and service delivery, and be challenging any further cuts.

“It has been a very stressful time for all members involved in this change process. Even those who’ve kept their jobs are feeling the impact and are worried more losses are to come,” says Richard Wagstaff.

Appendix A

Structural changes
The PSA represents 3,100 employees across Auckland’s councils. The table of losses shows that the brunt of these cuts comes above tier 5. Jobs described as tier 5 and below have been reduced from 7403 to 7367, that’s a reduction of 36 positions, while more than a thousand jobs have gone in tiers 1 to 4.

1 November 2009
1 November 2010
Tier 1
13 8
Tier 2
88 42
Tier 3
403 176
Tier 4
1523 614
Tier 5 and below
7403 7367
Totals
9430 8207

ends

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