KiwiRail

A round of proposed job cuts at KiwiRail's Woburn, Lower Hutt, workshops has been halted after a group resignation of workers pre-empted it.

Hillside worker redundancies, after owner KiwiRail decided to accept Chinese tenders to build rolling stock, have united opponents across the political and business divide.

John de Bueger warns about the danger of buying on price alone.

A rail and Maritime Transport Union delegate at Hillside has likened rail workers being told they had lost their job yesterday to "plucking sheep out of a herd".

Hillside union delegates have labelled a visit by KiwiRail chief executive Jim Quinn to Dunedin this morning as "morally repugnant'' given the expected confirmation of 40 job cuts at the South Dunedin engineering outfit later this afternoon.

Hillside workers will find out the fate of 40 job-threatened positions at the South Dunedin engineering workshop this afternoon, but not before they make a last-ditch protest against the controversial KiwiRail proposal.

Speakers are lining up to support the Save Hillside jobs campaign at a public rally in the Octagon today.

Kiwirail management is about to begin its final deliberations on which Hillside jobs are likely to go, after a consultation period with employees and union delegates ended yesterday - the eve of a public rally campaigning for a change of heart.

A rebuild of wellington's commuter rail services is unlikely to lead to work for under-fire South Dunedin rail engineering outfit Hillside Workshops, a KiwiRail manager says.

The Government can step in and do the right thing over contracts to build wagons in China rather than at Hillside, Dunedin, the Rail and Maritime Transport Union South Island organiser John Kerr says