TYRE FACTORY DISPUTE

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27993, 13 June 1956, Page 14

TYRE FACTORY DISPUTE

Work Resumed At Papanui NEGOTIATIONS TO CONTINUE

Rubber workers employed by the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company who were called out for a stop-work meeting yesterday morning spent five hours and a half discussing alleged breaches of an agreement made between their trade union arid the comoany management on May 1. and then instructed the six union officials who had signed their names to the agreement to abrogate it. The officials withdrew their names and work at the company’s Papanui factory, which employs nearly 200 men. was resumed with the afternoon shift at 3.30 p.m. Executive members of the union spent all yesterday afternoon in discussions with senior members of the company management. Late last evening agreement was reached after long negotiation between Mr A. B. Grant, secretary of the Canterbury Rubber Workers’ Union, and Mr H. G. Miller, the company’s general manager, that proposals should be put forward by the union for a new agreement and that the management would give full consideration to them.

“Both the union delegates and the management agreed that there were causes for complaint on both sides,” said Mr Grant last evening. “After the stop work meeting union officials advised the management that they were withdrawing from the agreement of May 1 and they requested negotiation on a new memorandum of agreement.

“The management agreed to consider any new proposals that the union set forth.

“The union delegates raised further complaints concerning the bonus returns of groups within the factory and the management has agreed to consider the representations and give the union a reply within the next few days,” Mr Grant said.

Mr Miller, who was present, agreed with what Mr Grant had to say to “The Press.” Mr Grant said that a statement correctly reported in “The Press” yesterday that the type of incentive bonus being paid, or the incentive system which operated at the factory, compelled men to chase quantity at the expense of quality, was somewhat misleading and required amplification to put it in perspective.

“The main objective has always been at Firestone to maintain and supply the highest quality production and my statement did not mean that anything other than the highest quality tyre was supplied to the consumer because tyres that do not meet the company’s rigid requirements are scrapped,” Mr Grant said.