A parliamentary select committee is scheduled to consider a petition from almost 14,000 mainly Dunedin-based signatories, as last-ditch efforts to retain engineering jobs at the Hillside workshops continue.
Rail, Maritime, and Transport Union (RMTU) workers presented the petition to Parliament last month, after a Save Hillside campaign was launched in response to a round of redundancies at the landmark South Dunedin engineering outfit by KiwiRail.
Dunedin South MP Clare Curran has urged members of the transport and industrial relations select committee to give Hillside workers a chance to make personal submissions to Parliament about the RMTU petition.
A select committee clerk confirmed the petition would be considered by MPs at a committee meeting in Wellington on Thursday.
However, details about the select committee's deliberations cannot be made publicly available until the meeting is reported to the House.
National Party list MP Michael Woodhouse, of Dunedin, who sits on the committee, said he was bound by Parliament's rules of privilege and was unable to comment on the matter.
The RMTU petition, which contains 13,854 signatures, including many from Dunedin residents, was launched to try to get the Government to intervene and stop state-owned enterprise KiwiRail from outsourcing its rail work to overseas companies.
