At 6pm today (Monday 10th November) FENZ Deputy National Commander Megan Stiffler sent out an email to staff in the Community Resilience and Risk Reduction teams inviting them to a meeting on Wednesday to discuss proposed restructuring and “what it could mean for your roles”.
The staff have not been provided with any information at all about the proposal so they are naturally thinking the worst case scenario – FENZ wants them gone.
The NZPFU, who represents many of these staff members, have also not been provided with any information about the proposed restructuring.
The invitations state that the meeting is being held “in confidence of the formal consultation process, and it's your opportunity to talk in private”. Yet the invites have gone to groups of people to meet at the same time.
NZPFU representatives across the country have been inundated with calls from distressed members stating they have been invited to a meeting where they may be told it is proposed their jobs are to go or to change when they have not even been provided with the proposal.
Megan Stiffler did not even have the decency to notify the Union she was sending out this email.
Sending out this invitation, without any information on the restructure proposal, and at 6pm when there is no one those affected can contact in FENZ, can only be viewed as either deliberately inflicting avoidable stress and concern, or FENZ is so out of touch they have absolutely no basic sense of decency.
This is a completely botched attempt at restructure already and is another example of FENZ’s complete disregard for the welfare of staff. FENZ is starting a restructure process just 7 weeks out from Christmas.
The NZPFU collective agreement, which covers these staff, requires FENZ to consult on the need for change, not just the implications of change. It appears FENZ has already breached that requirement and we will take all available action to stop unlawful change.
Megan Stiffler is due to be fronting to the NZPFU National Conference of Delegates in Whanganui on Wednesday morning, the time of one of these meetings, so she will not even be at that meeting she is inviting these staff members to.
We assume that has been done deliberately in an attempt to try and prevent NZPFU representatives attending.
We assure our members that we will make sure there is appropriate union representation at these meetings to advocate in their interests.
In unity,
Wattie Watson
National Secretary
