ONE-DAY FREEZING WORKS STOPPAGE AT BORTHWICK’S

Press, Volume C, Issue 29434, 9 February 1961, Page 12

ONE-DAY FREEZING WORKS STOPPAGE AT BORTHWICK’S

Freezing workers in the Belfast works of Thomas Borthwick and Sons (Australasia) Ltd. were back at work yesterday after almost a full day’s stoppage on Tuesday. The stoppage was over the non-payment of "followon” workers made idle through a departmental meeting of slaughtermen. Stoppages occurred last month at Borthwick's over a similar dispute. The dispute began on Monday. when a meeting of slaughtermen at 10 a.m. carried on past the allotted “smoko” time and follow-on workers were left without anything to do. The company, in line with its previouslystated policy, refused to pay the follow-on workers for the time lost, and the works branch of the union responded by calling a meeting for 8 a.m. Tuesday. At this meeting, it was decided to abandon work for the day in protest. The company’s works manager (Mr C. R. Croucher) commented that he “could not understand why the men had voluntarily deprived themselves of nearly a day’s pay in protest against the loss of half an hour.” As far as his company was concerned, the matter was in the hands of the Labour Department. Last month he had deposited with the department the amount of pay involved in a previous

dispute, with the request that the department should take up the case of any one of the workers in order to get a Court ruling. “I am convinced that the company’s stand is correct, and shall hold to it until told otherwise. In my opinion, the ruling given by Mr Justice Tyndall at Burnside last year should cover this case also.” The secretary of the Canterbury branch of the freezing workers’ union (Mr T. Handisides) said that "as long as a man was not being paid, he would not work.

"The question of the fourhour call-out could conceivably be involved in this dispute,” Mr Handisides added. (The four-hour call-out is a clause in the freezing-work-ers’ award by which men called out to work must get a minimum of four hours’ pay). “As for Mr Justice Tyndall’s decision at Burnside, we do not accept it as applying in this dispute.” The secretary of the Borthwick’s branch of the union (Mr F. E. McNulty) and the district superintendent of the Department of Labour (Mr C P. Collins) had no comment to make.

The annual meeting of the New Zealand Freezing Workers’ and Related Trades' Assocition will be held in Christchurch today and tomorrow.