Issue No 26 | 13 August 1999 | |
Letters to the EditorPrivatisation Of Prince Of Wales Hospital Maintenance Department
I have supported Labor {both State and Federal} since I started work as an apprentice and became old enough to vote {1970}. I watched that job I held for twenty-two years become redundant under a Greiner Liberal Government. Now a job I have held for several years is soon to become redundant, {due to privatisation of our maintenance workshop at the Prince of Wales Hospital Randwick} arranged by a Carr "Labor?" Government. The "Liberal" tactics used by the Carr Government to make state workers totally humiliated and pushed into "voluntary" redundancies. So that Government assets can be sold-off to pay for {I believe} badly managed Government Departments and an Olympic Games? What we are being subjected too has also been experienced by State Rail, DOCS, RTA and the Power Industry. All by a Labor government! The Prince of Wales Hospital owns a Car Parking Station that holds in excess of two thousand cars this was as I understand it, leased to a private company for twenty years for a cash pay-out {in my opinion a virtual goldmine, lost}. Now they {the Prince of Wales} are going through the processes of leasing the Plant Rooms {for twenty years} and privatising the Maintenance Workshop for the same period. Some staff may be required by the contractor the others, can take a voluntary redundancy, although we are not sure as everything is hush, hush, and it will be another two weeks before we find out anything. Not surprising as they told us we would know our futures by last May! What about when all the Public Assets have been sold off! What then? How about Mr Carr looking into the managerial expertise of his so-called managers in Government Departments, especially in the Health Department. Ask about: - Their qualifications {lack of technical knowledge and management nous} - Their expensive mistakes derived from their decisions {wrong equipment purchased and then discarded, or the necessity to purchase additional equipment to augment the short falling's of previously purchased equipment, to name a few} - Their understanding of the workplace they manage - Their understanding of being frugal without cutting services {waste} - Purchase of equipment out of their depth, ie. Without understanding the availability of spare parts or the cost or actual down time required, not to mention training required to service said equipment. {training?} - The inefficient use and control of contractors - The use of in-house staff to fix up contractors work, who have already been paid and gone. {Who will fix it up when we are gone, another contractor!} - Bob Carr is always telling US to use Public Transport, BUT every manager's job comes with a {leased} car as part of their package as it does right across the board of State Government Departments. It appears to me that all cost savings start at the lower end of the workers scale, because it is easy, instead of tackling the problem where it really lies and always has! It is my opinion that these Managers believe that by letting contracts they will be devoid of any responsibilities and can sit back and peruse their mountaining superannuation. It is easy to make maintenance workers, cleaning staff etc. redundant, the insignificant savings are only temporary as the real cause of the problems are still in place and will remain in place whether the actual work is done by private contract or not. Name Withheld By request
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