Good news tums bad for Karioi staff

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 7, Issue 361, 13 November 1990, Page 1

Good news tums bad for Karioi staff

Last week's good news that Winstones had bought the Karioi Forest looks to be bad news for New Zealand Timberlands workers at Karioi. Six permanent forestry management staff were told some months ago that their employment with Timberlands would terminate on 30 November and that they would have to look to the forest's new owners for work, but Winstones have not approached the staff to tell them if they will be offered jobs or not. Winstones' forest manager Terry Tapp said

the administration of the forest would be carried out by staff already employed by the company. He said it was un-

fortunate but Winstones did not need the Timberlands staff. He said it would take some time to settle into the new for-

est management system but that he was sure no extra staff, other than contractors, would be needed.

He said Winstones would need all the present contract workers and probably more, as Turnpage2

Bad news for Timberlands staff

From page 1 they plan to increase the cut from 250,000 tonnes of timber per year to 300,000, depending on demand. Timberlands Karioi manager Dennis Brown said the staff have known for about 12 months that Timberlands would be wound up but that they were all hoping for jobs with the new owners. Mr Brown said he was happy, as were most of the staff, with their redundancy package, but that it was small consolation for what faced them now. "At least the redundancy money was there," said one staff member, "it will help clear a few debts."

Mr Brown said he has taken on the job of manager of the Ohakune Club but that most of the others would have to move out of the area to find work. All are married and most have young families, he said. "We've heard rumours that Winstones will not be offering us work," said one of the staff. "But they haven't had the decency to come and tell us either way." Mr Tapp said Winstones were told not to approach the Timberlands staff, that Timberlands would inform them of the situation. Tm quite amazed that none of them approached me before and asked about future employment," said Mr

Tapp. He said some had come to see him in the past week. The Timberlands workers are assuming Winstones will use present Winstones Afforestation staff to carry out the Karioi forest

management and/or bring in outside staff. "But there's more than 130 years' experience here," said a worker. Probably more than half of that amount is experience in the Karioi Forest, they said.

Mr Tapp said it was not true that Winstones was bringing in staff from out of the area to carry on the administration work. He said the company has had a policy in place for several Turnpage 3

Forest Staff

From page 2 years of employing local staff where possible and that policy would continue. Timberlands staff in other areas have been taken on by the new owners, with some taking on the whole workforce. What is upsetting for many of the staff is that they chose a forestry career partly because it was seen at the time as a life-time career. "Those days are gone for almost everybody though," they said. "We knew Timberlands was going but we thought there might be a job at the end of the line."