100 MEN STRIKE AT MURUPARA

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27733, 10 August 1955, Page 12

100 MEN STRIKE AT MURUPARA

PROTEST AGAINST FOOD WORKERS ON TOWN SITE INVOLVED (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, August 9. More than 100 men employed on town site work at Murupara went on strike after lunch today in a protest against the meals served in the new cookhouse. They say they will stay on strike until the standard of food improves. Union delegates said that there had been trouble with meals provided for single men since the Murupara end of the Tasman project began nearly a year ago. Single Canadian lumbermen who also eat at the cookhouse support the complaints, and may strike in sympathy. The cookhouse is run by caterers for the Kaingaroa Logging Company, and is mainly used by carpenters and other town construction workers, as well as single lumbermen employed by the company. Most of the men on strike work for the associated building firms of Tapper, Churchhouse, and Shirley, or the Fletcher Construction Company. The secretary of the Kaingaroa Logging Company (Mr E. E. Moore) said this afternoon that the company did not want a strike. "The men do not seem satisfied with either the quality or quantity of the food,” he said, “bqt we have made full investigations into the cookhouse and fail to see that their claims are fully justified.”