Stop-Work Talks In Carpet Factory

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30739, 1 May 1965, Page 1

Stop-Work Talks In Carpet Factory

A stop-work meeting of all woollen workers at the Riccarton factory of the Carpet Manufacturing Company, Ltd., will be held on Monday at 4 p.m. The management of the company was advised of this yesterday by the Riccarton branch secretary of the Canterbury Woollen Workers’ Union (Mr T. McGinn).

Eleven men in the factory’s finishing department walked 1 out at 6 p.m. on Thursday. They are the workers directly affected by the implementation of a three-shift day beginning last Monday. Lose Half-hour’s Pay

section of manufacture. Many sections of the factory had already been working three shifts for a long time. “There just isn’t any way around this. You can’t multiply the old shift time by three and get 24. “This is something wider than a difference between the management and the union. It is a question of the whole of New Zealand putting the whole of its equipment to use for 24 hours a day,” the spokesman said.

Mr McGinn said yesterday that under the former twoshift system, the night shift worked eight hours, had a half-hour meal break, and was paid for eight hours and a half. With the introduction of the new shift the men would lose half an hour’s pay a day, amounting to about 25s a week, because they would work only seven hours and a half a day with a paid meal break of half an hour. He said that since the management had enforced the change-over negotiations had been going on between himself, the Labour Department and the company, but no agreement could be reached. “This is a case of the expansion and increased efficiency of the industry interfering with the take-home pay of the worker.

“The stop-work meeting is being held to discuss the situation. It will be attended by about 400 union members. The men who walked out on Thursday have offered to come back on two-shift operation pending arbitration, but the management has refused to accept this, * Mr McGinn said The matter will also be difr cussed at the regular monthly meeting of the Canterbury union in the Trades Hall at 1 p.m. today. A company spokesman said last evening that the change to three-shift operation was br ° u ? bt ’bout by increased activities in the particular