Alan Murdie replies...

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 13, Issue 611, 7 November 1995, Page 4

Alan Murdie replies...

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to reply to the letter from K. Taiaroa. First I must say that I found the letter to be personally quite offensive. Karen and I have been employing staff for over 1 7 years since taking over the Mutual Stores from Barry Melody. Because of the high staff turnover of the grocery trade as a whole, we would have employed well over 200 people over this period. During all those various interviews I can categorically state that race has

never at any stage been taken into account as a condition of employment. When we are employing new staff we use the guidelines as set out by Foodstuffs and the New Zealand Employers Assn. This includes filling in an application for employment form which we find helpful in many ways. They give us the opportunity to make sure the applicant can read and write and understand a reasonably simple form. It also gives us background information on the applicant plus a contact of a previous employer or teacher. It also stops us from bias towards people we know personally very well.

The way the applicants present themselves the first time we meet them has a major impact on their chances of employment. Any person chewing or smoking during an interview, smelling badly of B.O., wearingjandals, gumboots and old tattered clothing etc, walking and scuffing at a snail's pace and basically peering at me blankly after being asked a simple question has no hope at all. We also prefer our staff to have at least four year' s secondary education and be able to speak reasonably well, as well as having no major medical problems. Although we do not al-

ways get it right Karen and I pride ourselves on our staff. Our present staff of 32 are the best that we can find available in the W aimarino and we feel they are good ambassadors for us, as, after all, they hold our livelihood in their hands. We try hard to get a good cross section of race, age and gender in our staff selection but we are reliant on the staff available.

Alan

Murdie

_ Ohakune New World