WOMEN STRIKE

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23917, 8 April 1943, Page 6

WOMEN STRIKE

FREEZING WORKERS AT WESTFIELD

ACTION CONSIDERED AT MASS MEETING (P.A.) AUCKLAND, April 7. A dispute at the Westfield freezing works which developed this week over the employment of a girl in the casing sheds has resulted in 33 of the other girls in that department refusing to work. Their action was considered at a mass meeting of employees at the lunch hour, when a resolution was adopted supporting the attitude of the girls and requesting the management to withdraw the girl from the department. The dispute originated last week, when, to supplement the casing department staff of girls, the management transferred this particular girl from the cannery. All the other girls, except about seven, objected to the return of this woman. It was confirmed by a representative of the company that she had formerly been engaged in the department, but was transferred to the cannery by the management about seven months ago, when friction between her and other hands occurred. The girls ceased work last Friday, after the management had refused to comply with their request that the girl be not employed in their department, and although they have attended the works each day since then, none of them has worked. Negotiations with the management having failed; the dispute was brought to a head at the mass meeting to-day. Fully 800 of the 2000 employees participated in the voting, which resulted in more than 400 endorsing the girls’ attitude and more than 300 taking the opposite view. It is understood that the girls are to absent themselves from work pending the outcome of representations being made to the management by union officials. An official of the company said that when the trouble occurred the management communicated with union officials. “They investigated the case and said they considered the girls were in the wrong, and endeavoured without success to get them to go back to work,” added the official. “We also got in touch with the Manpower Department and later with the Wages Commissioner (Mr C. L. Hunter), who after going into the facts expressed the view very strongly that ■the girls were wrong in their attitude. |He had also endeavoured without success to induce the girls to return to work.” The girl round whom the dispute centres was a skilled calibrater, the official stated, and as the casing department was short of that class of worker she had been transferred there after her consent had been obtained.