27 June 2001

"The PSA is calling upon the Community Probation Service to address serious concerns relating to management style, conditions of employment and safety and health when it meets with CPS representatives this evening in a bid to resolve the current dispute" said National PSA Secretary Richard Wagstaff

For the third day running, PSA members working in CPS walked off the job across NZ, effectively closing down the service.

"We know that CPS, in provoking this dispute, were planning for a five day strike. We have seen their contingency plans'" said Richard Wagstaff.

PSA members are incensed that CPS management continues their suspension of PSA members who declined to undertake a training session on Monday in support of a new Collective Agreement.

Members are also incensed that CPS is offering the rejected agreement to non-PSA members.

"CPS have once again demonstrated that their aim is to undermine our members collective will by using this tactic."

"This dispute will inevitably be settled at some point, but these actions do not help build a more positive relationship, they only make matters worse and further damage the relationship" said Richard Wagstaff.

"The PSA will be seeking a settlement that demonstrates acknowledgment of the work that our members have been doing. That will include addressing safety concerns where our members are expected to work in isolation with offenders, stress and reaching a settlement that has more tangible immediate benefits".

"Issues of morale also have to be addressed urgently. CPS know, by their own climate surveys that the workplace morale is very low and trust in management is also poor".

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>