Very smart appointment

The Herald reports:

The agency designing Auckland’s Super City has hired trade union leader Laila Harre to help it merge 6800 employees of the eight councils into one.

Ms Harre has resigned as national secretary of the Distribution Workers Union to take on a human resources and change management role with the agency, which has to forge the new Auckland Council by October 2010.

What a very smart move by the Transition Agency. One of the most delicate issues will be the merging of jobs, potential job losses, and also possible change in the location of where people work etc. Laila is likely to minimise any chance that this is done in a way which is unfair, or perceived by most people as unfair.