Quiet dispute means longer power cuts

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 320, 23 January 1990, Page 1

Quiet dispute means longer power cuts

If Electricorp' s power supply to the Waimarino is cut at the local substation on a weekend residents could be facing a two-hour wait for the supply to be restored.

Because at times local operators are not available, due to what Electricorp calls an industrial dispute, a service technician must travel from Palmerston North to see to the problem in the event of a local fault. Manager for this region John Cartwright said the journey from Palmerston North would only very rarely add a gr'eat deal of time to the fixing of a fault. He said most times when a permanent fault occurs, such as when a pole is damaged, the trip would add only a few minutes

delay to the time the power was off. He said Electricorp is planning to install a remote control system but he couldn't say when this would happen. Electricorp and the union are in disagreement over on-call arrangements on weekends and public holidays. Electricorp has changed the roster so that substation workers are now paid for a fiveday week, Monday to Friday with the time from 8am Saturday to 8am Monday covered

by operators on standby. But the operators are only making

themselves available for standby duties when it suits thesfa because of the standby pay

Electricorp has offered - an hour's wages. Previously one operator was Turnpage2