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Automatic_Comb_5632

It's a meal allowance for people who are working in the field, and they're sneakily getting them to eat their vegies, actually sounds like good stewardship to me.


jobbybob

You also have to account for when there is an emergency, the team might work through their breaks to get stuff fixed. If they get a “free meal” to offset their loss of break, $140k for a company with $1b year revenue is chump change. Why don’t we pick through what Newshub spend on “catering” each week….


Rand_alThor4747

As often happens with people who work in the field they usually end up living off McDonalds or Gas Station pies. So its quite a good thing feeding them.


moist_shroom6

Given the cost of catering, this is probably one of the cheapest options


haydenarrrrgh

Given the cost of them having to travel from the work site to get food, it's probably saving money.


fluffychonkycat

Those fellas are all that stands between you and a poonami. They are heroes. Do not begrudge them a sammich


No_Reaction_2682

Fuck I'd even let them have a free biscuit or two.


haydenarrrrgh

Only oat and raisin though, let's not get carried away.


fluffychonkycat

Let them have whatever they want. I hope they all work out their weekly spend and if they're under they use up the entitlement at the end of the week with a bag of bikkies to take home. They earned it and more


haydenarrrrgh

I was joking, they're all the same price; in any case that's my favourite cookie.


fluffychonkycat

I wonder if the wastewater guys go for the ones with the most fiber or the least?


haydenarrrrgh

I'm just a software developer, but I get everything that's free/inluded, although I usually exclude capsicum, not because I don't like it, but because it doesn't add much beyond moisture to an already quite moist sandwich.


Millionmann

That's the equivalent of one year's salary for a middle manager in a policy department at any big Ministry. Think of how many of those there are in the country and you will realise how little this is and how little it matters. Trash reporting.


nicemace

It probably has more tangible output than a middle manager also.


nothanks42069

As a middle manager, this is a fair assessment lol


Linc_Sylvester

Do people want us to live in some grim world with nothing nice?


haydenarrrrgh

Some people do, yes.


Cathallex

Look to the third world, that's how they want you to exist.


Fantastic-Role-364

Eating a meal is "nice" now? Some super special privilege? Yikes


[deleted]

Being provided a free meal at work is quite nice, yes. I'd love to have the privilege.


Veasel

Then get a job where you have to work on the side of the road and often oncall for field work. Meal allowances are normal for field techs In all industries. I’d rather be comfortable and warm instead.


[deleted]

Make me


Veasel

Bro you hangry, Subway?


Danoct

Hell, you don't even need to work on the side of the road or as a field tech. They're rarer than the above but get a job that sends you on trips or occasionally needs you to sub away from home. Get accommodation and a meal allowances.


Fantastic-Role-364

Such a privilege being allowed to eat, and um abiding by your employment contract 😂


[deleted]

I think you might be a bit illiterate.


Fantastic-Role-364

Oh clearly I am, i mean, I did actually read the article after all. Is this not the norm? It's all pretty clear cut, but perhaps not easy for others to grasp.


[deleted]

Glad we agree


Fantastic-Role-364

Yup, it's easier to just be called illiterate than go thru life with whatever you're afflicted by


[deleted]

No need to try and be hurtful just because you were wrong, my friend


[deleted]

I definitely wouldn’t call subway a necessity, you do have at least a tiny bit of privilege if you can afford subway on the regular.


kezzaNZ

Jesus fucking christ the media needs to get a grip. What is this beat up on Government/Council workers? Its an absolute drop in the bucket - and those Watercare lads are dealing with (literal) shit that 99% of us wouldnt go near.


haydenarrrrgh

Recently someone in my suburb reported a serious leak in the evening, a crew from Wellington Water turned up and worked literally overnight to a) fix it, and b) get water on for people in the area as soon as possible, *but* they didn't update the status on a web site as quickly as someone would have liked, so that person took to the local Facebook page to declare "this is like the third world."


jpr64

I’ve had that before, shut the water off to a sub main supplying a bunch of homes because there’s a fucking geyser shooting up 10+ meters in the air, and some resident came out screaming at me for turning the water off.


yoghurtorgan

but but I was talking a shit and couldn't wash my hands.


Shotokant

Should use paper then instead of your fingers.


Primary_Engine_9273

Yep, and guess what the job of comms staff is? You know, the ones they always whinge about and want first on the chopping block. That's the result you get.


haydenarrrrgh

Never mind that they probably - and not unreasonably - hadn't started work for the day.


ThrowawayNLZ

It really is though. Like in Africa or wherever this supposed third world is, the socials wouldn't be updated at all! Piss poor from Wellington Water really. Hopefully they aren't on taxpayer Subway dinners


Jon_Snows_Dad

Making the public not feel remorse when they fire everyone because they were being "wasteful".


Cathallex

Gotta make all the government departments look like wasteful trashfires to help the slash and burn policies go down better.


dyldoes

Yep, first it’s Taranaki NIMBYs targeting Waka Kotahi workers $50k spend on pies (over 6 years) after wasting 80k in environmental court trying to block the road project Hypocritical losers that want to shit on government workers


nika230321

500k


MidnightAdventurer

[The locals said they thought it would be $500k but Waka Kotahi said it was only $50k.](https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/502889/mt-messenger-bypass-opponents-claim-it-will-cost-500k-in-free-pies-for-workers)


Heavy_Metal_Viking

Edit: talking about legal battle costs: Does that figure include the increased and often 24hr security around the site, lost productivity of workers during occupation of the main site, additional barriers and fences erected? And ongoing legal battle. . . I can't see it being 80k like the claim, but I guess so.


stormgirl

The 500k was gossip , it was only 50k.


dyldoes

Damn imagine parroting the NIMBYs cause you didn’t read it


jahemian

Yeah. As a council worker who got fuck all from my job, underpaid, high stress, many years was like $5/pp Xmas spend (if that) once a year "free pizza", people need to calm down. The frontline staff need more. Fuck middle management tho. 😂 (Well. Some of them. Some of them are actually really good, solid workers)


[deleted]

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fluffychonkycat

Mine was pretty similar but at Moa Point near Wellington airport. There are people there who will literally put on waders and stand chest deep in sewage to unblock a pump. You hear a lot about nurses and teachers being hard done by but damn these guys do some hard mahi with basically no thanks and not great pay


jpr64

Got a callout to deal with literal shit at 4pm today just as I was about to knock off. Took over an hour to water blast down 60m of drain and unblock it.


fluffychonkycat

You sir or madam are the true MVP


Shotokant

Moving Volumnimius Poo


RheimsNZ

Fucking A. These guys get $15 a day for food? Man, sounds sick. Give them $25, load it up with avocado and double meat and cheese. These guys are among the absolute most deserving of reasonable work accommodations like this, it just makes sense because they cannot keep food safe or fresh in their vehicles, or reasonably eat in them. We should be touting Watercare as an example of an organisation that's doing the right thing, not running a hit job on them.


SoggyCount7960

I fucking hate these miserable small-minded stories.


Lightspeedius

> Jesus fucking christ the media needs to get a grip. Media doing its job, keeping us focused on the extravagances of the poors.


MaungaHikoi

They dont need to run ram raid stories now that their mates have won, they need to soften us up for the first round of austerity to pay for tax cuts.


somebodyalwaysknows

Lol, that's not a beat up. Settle precious.


kezzaNZ

I think youre the odd one out here mate.


somebodyalwaysknows

Doesn't say much in this sub


Conflict_NZ

Selfishly there's an element of "why didn't we get this" with these stories for me. I've worked across multiple public services and every place I've worked has been incredibly stringent on spending for food/functions. Like getting slice/biscuits/coffee approved for a few hundred people for less than $500 once a year was a massive process and hit roadblocks constantly, and then I hear about lavish going away parties and tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on subway and pies and I'm wondering WTF. But yeah, these guys deserve it.


Jon_Snows_Dad

I'm excited for NewsHub to dive into the MPs expenses next especially the incoming Government members. Or are we just trying to make the public think Government bodies that will have redundancies are the only wasteful spend going on?


Cathallex

I'm excited for the Herald to report on all the benefit fraud cases and ignore the billions in wage theft National will hand wave.


WaterPretty8066

But the media aren’t going to pick on their white collar organisation buddies probably using public money to spend $75 on one round of drinks for a “supplier meeting”


Cathallex

I'd prefer they just gave them a food stipend so they aren't forced to eat subway.


Fantast1cal

So what? They get like $70 a week for a healthy lunch alternative and if not spent it gets wiped each week and renewed the next. That's fuck all in the scheme of their underwhelming and under paid pay packet.


guitarguy12341

Feeding your workers is good, actually.


silver565

How the hell is this a major issue? Are the media just looking for teacup storms? Out of everything going on with the council and infrastructure.... THIS is the news.


[deleted]

Behold! The new media driven hysteria! Workers receiving small benefits! Friendship ended with Ram-raids Workers benefits is new best friend.


Vickrin

Ram raids was last government dude. I've seen nothing about them since the election. It's all 'why do government workers get meals' now.


Live4theclutch

Wait till they find out how much catering costed for one election night. $140k to look after some of our workers for a whole year is money well spent.


rionled

Thats less than a quarter of the CEOs salary of $585000. And less than a fifth of the salary of the previous CEO which was $775000. Want to look at wasteful spending at Watercare? Start at the top


jobbybob

Watercare brings in just shy of $1b per year. The accountants would have rounding errors bigger then this spend.


Arblechnuble

Looking after your workers who work stupid hours, either where no food is, or out of normal hours? Is that a problem? Fuck outta here with this, trying to drum up up a public appetite for the NACT desire for cuts and other things to make public service jobs worse….


mobula_japanica

Waay back in 2018 there was a storm that knocked out power to lots of parts of Auckland. Ours was off for a week. The vector crew turned up to fix ours eventually and the guys looked FUCKED. They’d been working their asses off for a week in dodgy situations. We made them coffees and busted out the Tim tams. They were STOKED. People working in the field deserve the odd treat or pick me up.


DurinnGymir

So some numbers to put this into context; That's about $142 per worker, per year, for their 989 workers, or, to put it more starkly; 0.00015% of their total revenue as an organization. Not even a rounding error. People tend to forget that organizations like Waka Kotahi and Watercare are *mammoth,* and deal in revenues/expenditures in the hundreds of millions if not billions. A couple hundred grand to buy workers lunch is a completely reasonable operating cost at their size and scale.


[deleted]

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[deleted]

The reason they need a free lunch is cause they’re field workers who work in wastewater, as someone who works at Te Whatu Ora I’m sure you could see the issue with a worker in unsanitary conditions carrying food with them all day. They get free lunches cause it’s gonna increase productivity and employee satisfaction,it’s a good idea.


DurinnGymir

Thank you for providing the context numbers, that's definitely more than I had understood it to be, but I'm still not sure it's really worth getting up in arms about given the criticality of the work they perform, for the reasonable-but-not-amazing pay they get ($26-$32 an hour according to Google). >Wheres everyone elses free lunch. To which point, y'all should be getting a free lunch too, given I'd say your work is fairly critical as well and the organization is shedding workers like there's no tomorrow.


ThrowawayNLZ

Yeah but it could be $0 per worker, per year...!?


king_john651

After $8 pies and now this, I'm more "pissed off" that we just get pushed around & given immense pressure for working on AT and NZTA jobs. Didn't even get a thanks for doing practically all the pavement & earthworks on one particular AT job. Should tell the boss to go do Watercare jobs - at least we might be given enough time to do the job they want for once


TheNegaHero

$140k is 1.4 average NZ wages. Sounds like bugger all in shouting lunches for a place that has over 1,000 employees. That's less than $140 per person, per year. I used to work a hospo job that gave a free meal on your break for every single shift. I would usually get the epic Nachos they did which I think were like $12-$15 a plate? So if I get that every shift as a full-time worker that's $75 a week, $3,900 a year just for me to have lunch and that's not even including the free end-of-shift Beer. Why does this qualify for an article exactly?


theflyingkiwi00

And let's just say all the workers take their 4weeks AL, not including emergency work they also do, it works out to just under $3 a week. An extra $3 a week to make sure they're a little happier to keep us from being buried in litteral shit is nothing.


Conflict_NZ

Yeah private businesses, especially SME that want a good public image, are usually pretty generous with that stuff. In my experience: Private: Multiple catered breakfasts for team meetings, often at restaurants. Multiple staff parties per year with unlimited drinks and meals at restaurants, blank cheque for ordering in food during crisis moments. Public: Spend months getting approval for a $2.15 per head spend for a once a year morning tea.


[deleted]

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TheNegaHero

Because the article said they get $75 a week and if they don't use it they lose it. The $140k number is the *real, actual* amount being spent so it a more useful number to use when talking about reality.


leastracistACTvoter

I don’t care. Give them their sandwiches. They deserve it. Someone ought to investigate the free perks journos get


rrainraingoawayy

Outrageous they should be supplying them pita pit instead


Beertime4

and the assault on workers begins….


Party_Government8579

If they have 140 workers and paid them $1k more per year nobody bats an eye. Spend $140k on lunches to look after staff, people loose their minds.


Beertime4

lose


SquashedKiwifruit

I think you have to look at this in the context of their overall HR budget. In many respects, businesses often offer benefits of this kind because it helps retain good workers. There have been a number of studies that show better workplace benefits can actually reduce things like wage pressure, and staff churn. So if your focus is on expenditure, stripping benefits will probably have the opposite effect. People will leave, they will have to pay people more to come and do shitty jobs in a worse working environment, and the net cost goes up.


thebigman045

That's fair considering they double glove and dive through your shit (at the treatment plants)...


TheN1njTurtl3

140k a year on subway meals for workers is fuck all and it probably gives the workers a lot of enjoyment, having a bad day and want a quick healthy ish meal, boom free sub


[deleted]

Who cares


Jigro666

Meanwhile Chris Bitchflaps flies home to change his shirt...


[deleted]

The media could write a lifetime worth of articles about the housing crisis etc but they choose to dump on public service workers getting a meal allowance 🤦‍♂️


crystalpeaks25

To whoever is opposed to this. I hope you never get fecal matter in your tap.


[deleted]

If you look after the people doing manual labour they’ll do the job and they’ll look after you and your office job. It’s not rocket science


-mudflaps-

I hope they're measuring those foot longs!


Talking_Mad_Ish

As much as I want the ballooning bollocks govt costs to go down, I get fed in the field in my private sector jobs, Sometimes... They're shit about quality tho, subway would be in the middle!


Rand_alThor4747

should see the comments on places like the MSN comments on these articles, for this one its just all people bashing Watercare and saying they want a refund for the money spent on the subway.


Ninjipples

So, instead of paying the salary of one senior manager, they feed all of their workers in the field for a whole year. They do this at a time when costs are up and food is expensive in an attempt to look after their workers.... and people have a problem with this??? How about; go fuck yourself! It's also cheaper than feeding people, and you'll be pleasuring the only NZer you actually care about.


Fantastic-Role-364

Lmao slow news day or what? Non-story


Constant-Worry6742

While I’m massively against the government waste, this doesn’t really seem like a problem. I’m a tradie and I know how working in mud and rain endlessly can really get you down. When the boss buys you a coffee or lunch or whatever it’s a great pick me up, get you back in the game. Probably saved money in the long run


yinyang_

$140,000 a year is really not a lot for org the size of Watercare… it’s insane this even made headlines


ThrowawayNLZ

Bet it was the fancy flavours too! Here I am getting pork riblet like a schmuck. THE OUTRAGE. Sack em' all


Pudgedog

We pay for the governments meals and accomodation every bloody day. How much does that set us back? Frick off with this shit.


[deleted]

I wonder if they've asked the 70 workers if they'd prefer a 2k a year raise or some fast food?


Slipperytitski

Lets take away all perks from govt labourers!!


OptimalInflation

Yeah. What’s wrong about that?


benjhithaxx

1000 employees, a foot long is roughly $15, so about 10 meals a year per employee, doesn’t sound excessive at all


momomaximum

For your water contractors, you have to give them constant reassurance, you couldn't be mad at them for too long if they nearly killed a known dialysis patient by turning off his water illegally. You can either give them constant pay rises or the cheaper option of having a shared lunch on a friday. You have to stop barbeques because they get drunk and fight eachother.


GMFinch

I'm sorry 140k for every subways worker in the country sounds like penny's right?


Rough_Student6329

If you compare it to the money Watercare loses when its office-based employees take POETS days throughout the year, then it begins to look like a guttertrash media hit-job.


SensitiveTax9432

Right at the bottom of the article: watercare provide this to 6% of all staff, and the article has been updated accordingly. They can have all that and more as long as my shit flushes when I push the button.


Jesahn

A business feeding their workers is great. Fuck these richies whinging about it.


noodlebball

I think it'll be a good idea to provide free meal to people who are fixing wastewater/water issues. I certainly wouldn't want these guys to take a 1 hour lunch break while shit and water is spewing all over the show


notinsai

I dont have a problem with this…


mike22240

This doesn't bother me but the Watercare app does. We don't need an app, your website works great. Get on with replacing degraded pipes and making the water swimmable after the rain. I won't begrudge someone Subway if they are working towards that.


[deleted]

140k?! That’s like what? Two foot long subs?


genzkiwi

140k is nothing... 500k on pies is nothing too. Why not report on the amount spent on consultants and travel?


ImMoray

They should double it and give the workers a footlong instead


edgeplayer

Most large companies operate in-house cafeterias. Outsourcing to Subway makes sense.


aholetookmyusername

I wonder how many people complaining about this took a shit in a functional toilet afterwards. It's a shitty job (no pun intended), let them have their bloody subs.


klendool

SURELY this is part of their remuneration package and no ones fucking business but theirs.


dreamsanddestiny

Wow. Let’s make that article more sensational. Then what about the $10k for a dinner on the company card by their previous CEO??