Source: PSA
The PSA is urging Wellington City Council to withdraw a planned restructure impacting hundreds of jobs, coming just weeks before local government elections.
The council is proposing a major shake up of the Customer and Community business group.
“Hundreds of Wellington City Council workers across libraries, parks, recreation, city safety, and digital services face job uncertainty with many positions proposed for disestablishment,” said PSA National Secretary Fleur Fitzsimons.
“We will write to the CEO tomorrow morning asking that it is withdrawn.”
There are a number of dismissals proposed through redundancy.
Our initial count indicates 63 jobs going, 31 of which are currently vacant across the following teams: Connected Communities, Creative Capital, Park Sports and Rec, Smart Council, Libaries, Archives and Community spaces. There are significant changes proposed to many more jobs.
“These people are committed Wellingtonians who have more to give our city. This restructure would take Wellington backwards.
“The proposals would mean the loss of specialist expertise in parks, recreation and city safety to name a few and would result in unmanageable workloads for those who remain.
“At a time when there is so much concern about the future of Wellington, we oppose this major restructure, particularly so close to the council elections. It is not appropriate to be embarking on re-structure this significant in the pre-election period. It is a constitutional norm that significant work like this does not occur so close to a local election.
“The timeline currently has final decision documents being released three days after the local election, this is deeply wrong.”
The union will be supporting members during this challenging time.
“We are closely examining the proposal, we can already see a number of serious mistakes and our members are asking whether it has been written by AI.
“The PSA is also concerned that there is only three weeks’ consultation on a 216-page proposal affecting this many workers and services – that is simply inadequate.”
