'Broken hearts' at Southland disAbility Enterprises

Wednesday, 8 May 2019

​Southland disAbility Enterprises management, who employ 82 people with disabilities, says it has lost its recycling contract with WasteNet.

For the past eight years SDE has had a contract with WasteNet to recycle the wheelie bin collections in the region.

SDE management met with staff at 4pm on Wednesday, and then announced publicly they had lost the contract, despite being asked to keep it quiet until June 4, when the contract decision was to be ratified.

SDE chairman Stephen O'Connor felt they needed to break confidentiality, both to advise staff and also start to plan for the future.

The recycling contract made up about 70 per cent of SDE's operation, O'Connor said.

'We understand that this news will be upsetting and that the psychological and financial impact on our staff, their families and the community will be huge.'

The SDE team has committed to providing support to their staff as they work their way through the implications of the tender decision.

SDE's contract comes to an end on June 30.

Waste Advisory Group spokesman Gary Tong, who is also the Southland District Mayor, said he was disappointed SDE had breached the confidentiality agreement.

The tender was still 'live' and no decision had been made, he said.

But he did confirm that SDE was not the preferred tenderer at this stage.

WasteNet represents Invercargill City Council and the Southland and Gore district councils. It will be those councils that will make the final decision.

Tong said he was well aware of the social side of the issue which was why he couldn't understand why SDE had breached confidentiality.

'We will have to look at what this now means in [regards] to SDE breaching the confidentiality agreement.'

SDE general manager Hamish McMurdo said the reason he worked at SDE was because of the employees with disabilities. He described it as gut-wrenching having to 'break their hearts' with the news on Wednesday.

O'Connor said the one final shot for SDE to retain the contract was if elected members from the three councils chose not to back the proffered tender.

'They will have the final say and that is where they will nail their colours to the mast and decide whether its is about money or it is about people,' he said.

SDE received a lot of public support when it was initially confirmed that WasteNet would put the contract out for tender.

It included an online petition signed by 14,500 people who urged the councils to renew SDE's contract and allow the people with disabilities to remain in employment.

Rochelle Stewart, who launched the petition, has a brother working at SDE and was at Wednesday's meeting.

She was gutted and felt they had not been listened to.

Margaret Fitzgerald's sister also works at SDE and she was just as devastated.

'It's about the money. It's not about the people anymore it is about the money,' Fitzgerald said.

Invercargill Licensing Trust board member Sean Bellew, who was at SDE for the announcement, said the staff with disabilities and their parents and caregivers were deeply affected.

'If you saw the sea of faces … it was so sad. They were just flabbergasted.'

It was appalling if the decision had just come down to dollars and cents, he said.

Invercargill Ratepayers Advocacy Group spokesman Nobby Clark, who was at the meeting, said workers had asked if they would lose their jobs and whether they had done something wrong.

That was painful to see, Clark said.

The councils, when making the final decision, should open their meetings to the public so people could see who voted for SDE to remain and who voted for it to go, he said.

He understood social conscience could be used to accept a tender rather than just financials.

If some of the employees lost their jobs they would lose their sense of belonging, Clark said.

'It's just bloody terrible.'