A petition containing thousands of Dunedin signatures was presented at Parliament yesterday by railway workers from the troubled engineering workshops at Hillside, Dunedin, and Woburn, Lower Hutt.
The petition, bearing 13,854 signatures in support of a campaign to keep New Zealand jobs for local workers, was launched in South Dunedin about two months ago when State-owned Enterprise KiwiRail announced it would cut up to 70 jobs from its nationwide engineering and design operations.
Dunedin South MP Clare Curran accepted the petition outside Parliament yesterday, alongside Green Party transport spokesman Gareth Hughes.
Ms Curran said she would take the petition into the House and also push for it to be lodged at a select committee, which would give rail workers another chance to have their concerns heard through a submissions process.
South Dunedin's Hillside workshops in South Dunedin were hit hard by the KiwiRail job cull, losing 44 jobs from its 172-strong workforce.
The Woburn Workshops in Lower Hutt were next in line, with 20 redundancies seeming likely.
The Rail and Maritime Transport Union blames the job cuts on KiwiRail's decision to outsource to China contracts for the manufacture of railway rolling stock.
A KiwiRail spokeswoman said a consultation process to address 10 proposed redundancies at the company's Wellington-based engineering design team had also been started.
A third round of consultations to negotiate 20 proposed redundancies at Woburn was scheduled to begin with RMTU delegates from August 16, she said.
Kiwirail would make a final decision on the number of job redundancies "based on the feedback and information" from the consultation process.
RMTU national secretary Wayne Butson said the Government needed to pay attention to the almost 14,000 people who signed the petition calling for trains to be made at home.
He called on the Government, as the shareholder of KiwiRail, to put in place stronger procurement requirements to create more opportunities for local workers and strengthen local industry development.
Four laid off get jobs
Four Hillside workers from the total 44 employees made redundant on July 21 had been redeployed to other positions within KiwiRail, a company spokeswoman said yesterday.
Twenty-six Hillside workers accepted voluntary redundancy, she said.
KiwiRail was still working with the remaining 14 employees on their options for redeployment, she said.
Under a Rail and Maritime Transport Union-negotiated employment agreement, KiwiRail had to offer each redundant Hillside employee alternative employment, redeployment, and/or a job relocation, RMTU national secretary Wayne Butson said.
