Manukau job cuts 'running the place into the ground'

Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) confirmed to its staff yesterday that 54 jobs will go before Christmas.

Staff and South Auckland community members had been campaigning to turn around the polytechnic's proposal for mass redundancies since they were announced last month. MIT initially proposed cutting 68 jobs.

While there were some small improvements in the proposed cuts, for instance the School of Social Work has been spared and there will be slightly fewer job cuts to to some other areas, most of the cuts will now proceed unchanged.There are still huge cuts to Early Childhood Education, English Language and Foundation Education, with 35 full-time jobs going, while Engineering and Trades cuts proceed completely unchanged, with 19 full-time jobs going.

TEU national president Lesley Francey called the cuts 'grim' and said the fifty job losses would be devastating for the community, but the lost learning opportunities for local young people would be even worse.

"People believe that MIT's management is running it into the ground. It's treating its staff and students appallingly badly. There are massive cuts across critical areas which provide essential job skills to the community."

Now that MIT has confirmed the job cuts, it plans to call concurrently for volunteers to take redundancy, for people looking to redeploy to a small number of new positions, and to select people against criteria to lose their jobs compulsorily. It plans for all of this to be completed by 5 December.

ENDS

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