A plan to cut nearly 34,000 hours from the cleaning contract at Massey University has shocked and angered cleaning staff across the country.

From 1 July a new cleaning contractor has been appointed to work at Massey University's campuses in Auckland, Wellington and Palmerston North.

Service and Food Workers Union lead organiser Fala Haulangi says staff are shocked and saddened at the proposal.

"The cleaning staff of 100 have been told by the new contractor, OCS Ltd, that the company wishes to reduce the number of hours staff work and move towards 'term time' only employment. This will wreck lives and destroy the workers jobs, and result in a dirty and unproductive work environment for staff and students."

Under the proposal staff's jobs would be reduced to just 31 weeks guaranteed work a year.

· 400 hours would go from Palmerston North each week
· 120 hours would go from Auckland, and staff would be moved from night shifts to day shifts
· 158 hours would go from Wellington
· A total of 33,900 hours would be cut

Fala Haulangi says OCS is not offering staff any redundancy compensation and says the cuts are the result of Massey University changing the previous contract specifications.

"We are reaching out to Massey and have an urgent meeting this Friday to discuss these cuts. We want Massey to put the changes on hold and conduct an urgent review of the entire process."

Cleaners will protest the proposal tomorrow [Friday 9 July] from 1.30 pm outside the Registry at the Palmerston North Campus.

ENDS

For more information contact Fala Haulangi on 027 204 6332

PDF version of this media release