Post Mortem

July 3, 2002

Workers at the Evening Post are making sure that the paper goes out in style.

Their union, the EPMU, is organising a public commemoration on Saturday (July 6) for the 137-year-old paper.

Billed as a Post Mortem, the event will start at noon with Evening Post workers marching from Press House to Wellington’s Civic Square after the paper has gone to bed for the last time.

There will be speeches and bands (including the Evening Post Onslow Brass Band) at the square. Printers will bring the last copies of the paper in from the Petone printing hall.

Union national secretary Andrew Little said that the union couldn’t let the Post pass into history unnoticed.

“We’ve been representing workers at the Evening Post since the 1870s,” he said. “We’re proud of the work done by the men, women and children who have dedicated their lives to telling Wellington’s story. This is a chance for everyone in Wellington to turn out and say thank you, and to take part in a piece of history.”

Meanwhile, those Evening Post workers taking voluntary redundancy will finish at the end of the week.

Mr Little said that the company had accepted that voluntary redundancies should be called for across the Dominion and the Post.

All other workers will be kept on for another two to four weeks, until the company decides who will have jobs on the Dominion Post. Up to 90 jobs are expected to be lost – 60 of them journalists.

Union members on both newspapers are covered by a redundancy clause. Mr Little said that the company had agreed to pay paper boys and girls two weeks’ redundancy and would give them a gift voucher.

Ends

PLEASE NOTE: THERE WILL BE AN INDUSTRY-ONLY BASH AT THE WELLINGTON WORKINGMEN’S CLUB, CUBA ST, FROM 2PM ON SATURDAY. ANYONE IN THE INDUSTRY WHO WANTS TO FAREWELL THE POST AND SUPPORT COLLEAGUES IS WELCOME.

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