TYRE FACTORY DISPUTE

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27734, 11 August 1955, Page 11

TYRE FACTORY DISPUTE

WORKERS REJECT OFFER REINSTATEMENT OF TWO MEN STILL DEMANDED Workers from the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, which has been idle since July 30, and other members of the Canterbury Rubber Workers’ Union/met again yesterday morning and decided that the Firestone men would return to work only if the two union men dismissed by the company were reinstated. They rejected an offer of the management that the dispute over the dismissal of the two men should be submitted to an independent tribunal. Union officials, from the inception of the dispute, had advised , the management that it could and should have applied for a disputes committee on the lampblack dispute, a resolution of the meeting stated. That suggestion has been refused by t the management. The union also had' insisted that the men immediately concerned in the dispute and their witnesses should be heard by the management. The management must also be advised, the resolution stated, that two general stop-work meetings of the union had been unanimously of the opinion that the two dismissed men were unjustly dismissed. Therefore, it was not competent for the Firestone men to make a decision accepting the proposal of the management, not only because of the union’s previous decision, but also because the management’s proposal, in effect, had aheady been made by the union. Another resolution stated that the Firestone men agreed with the management that they should return to work and that the previous gooq relations between workers and management should be restored; but they also agreed with union officials that a formula for future negotiations could be arrived at by agreement with the management, job delegates and the union. Mr A. B. Grant, secretary of the union, said last evening that the men’s decisions had been conveyed to the management. Although full consideration was to be given to the union’s offer, The management refused to agree yesterday. Message to America Mr Grant said that the union was sending a cable menage to Mr Harvey S. Firestone, jun., at Akron, Ohio, world headquarters of the company, advising him of the situation at the Christchurch factory,, and of the union’s opinion that the two men were unjustly dismissed. The original dispute occurred on July 26, a Tuesday, Mr Grant said, and was over the unloading of lampblack. Negotiations failed and the union gave an instruction that the lampblack would not be unloaded until negotiations were reopened. The management advised by telegram men who, Mr Grant said, were not conversant with the negotiations to report for work on the morning of Saturday, July 30, and they did so. The job delegate reminded the men of the union’s instruction. “The management knew he would do this, and although his dismissal notice was dated July 30, it* had been typed and signed the previous day,” Mr Grant said.