THE NATIONAL UNION OF PUBLIC WORKERS (NUPW) has conceded there may be layoffs in the Public Service, but president Walter Maloney believes the jobs of temporary workers in established posts are safe.
On the other hand, Maloney said, he could not give assurances to any of the NUPW’s 10 000 members that all short-term employment would continue.
“There are temporary officers who are working in established posts; I don’t think those persons have much to worry about, but there are temporary officers who come in to work as substitutes, who have been working for some persons because they’ve gone on assignment somewhere and they’re due back to their jobs in a year or two years, those are persons that we would have concerns about,” he said yesterday at a news conference at the union’s Dalkeith Road headquarters that was also attended by acting general secretary Roslyn Smith and first vice president Akani McDowell.
“I don’t think it would be responsible of this organization to say to those temporary officers – persons who have been substituting, working two months here and two months there – that I can guarantee that will continue . . . I’m not going to sit here and say that one or two or three or four – and certainly not hundreds because we’re working against that – will not be displaced.”
