By Rachel Tiffen
KiwiRail is set to announce on Monday that it will cut 159 jobs as part of a wider $200 million restructure of the state-owned enterprise.
Workers’ representatives were given the news yesterday, and the decision is already coming under fire.
Nobody from KiwiRail or the union would talk to 3 News about the meeting but sources have confirmed that 74 of the jobs to be axed will be voluntary redundancies, and that more cuts will be announced next March.
New Zealand First says it is bad for families coming up to Christmas, as well as being bad business.
“There are long-term ramifications in the different rural areas because you lose working families,” says New Zealand First transport spokesman Brendan Horan. “For the taxpayer it's disastrous. A third will go into maybe contract work, a third will go to Australia - so we'll lose their taxes - and a third will go on welfare.”
Rail union representatives have been keen to point out what they claim are maintenance issues and Mr Horan says several of those incidences have occurred in the last week. One issue forced the Kaimai Tunnel to close in the Bay of Plenty and there was also a close call further north.
“A railway driver fell through a rotten Peruvian sleeper on an Auckland rail bridge and if it wasn't for the safety rail that train driver would have actually plunged 40m,” Mr Horan says.
The concern now is that job cuts will only make matters worse.
3 News