Apec: Busy day poses staff problem

By Warren Gamble

Inner-city Auckland employers may be asked to give staff the day off to minimise disruption during the Apec leaders' meeting on September 13.

And, although unlikely, Apec officials have not yet ruled out seeking a public holiday for the Monday meeting, despite facing the wrath of central businesses.

The Government will decide in the next few months.

Holidays have been the practice in other Apec host cities, but last year New Zealand organisers were lukewarm about the idea, saying it "would brass more people off than not."

The Apec taskforce's director in Auckland, Malcolm McGoun, said yesterday that all options, ranging from a public holiday to doing nothing, were being considered.

The taskforce wanted the best way to minimise disruption as 21 motorcades ferry leaders to and from the inner city to the Auckland Museum meeting venue.

The Auckland City Council and police were also involved in the talks.

Mr McGoun said any public holiday for Auckland was likely to require legislation, and there would also be the issue of deciding whether a holiday should apply to the city or its regional boundaries, or beyond.

Sources believed a favoured approach was to ask central-city businesses to voluntarily give as many employees as possible a holiday for the Monday meeting.

But the chief executive of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, Michael Barnett, said employers in small businesses could not afford to give up a day's trading and get nothing back.

He said a public holiday would create more unfairness because some businesses that had to stay open would face the extra cost of penal rates.

Mr Barnett said he favoured the practice adopted during the 1995 Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting when Auckland businesses cooperated by getting staff in and out of work at times that avoided problems with security arrangements.

Some businesses also asked staff to work from home.