U.S. Firm Seeks One Union At Manapouri

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30822, 6 August 1965, Page 1

U.S. Firm Seeks One Union At Manapouri

(By Our Industrial Reporter.)

One of the most controversial issues in the history of the New Zealand Arbitration Court—the question of union coverage for the £l4m Manapouri underground power-house—will come before the court in Wellington on September 14, 15 and 16.

• More than 600 men will be employed on the job, which is by far the biggest single contract in the £4om Manapouri power project.

The Otago Employers’ Association will make application on behalf of the Utah Construction and Mining Company for total exemption from 23 separate New Zealand industrial and craft union awards. The reason for the application is the Utah company’s desire to negotiate with the New Zealand Workers’ Union; thus covering all the men to be engaged on the project. The New Zealand Carpenters' Union, likely to have 300 of its members involved on the job in addition to bricklayers, has already notified the Federation of Labour that it is “strongly opposed” to the application, said the union’s general secretary (Mr W. F. Molineux, of Wellington) yesterday. The union has also advised the federation that it expected it to support its opposition. Mr Molineux is a national executive member of the federation.

Not A Precedent When asked as to the attitude of the federation on this issue, Mr Molineux said that in connexion with the Deep Cove coverage objections to similar applications for exemption were withdrawn. But it was made quite clear by the federation to the New Zealand Workers’ Union, that that specific agreement was not to be considered as a precedent. “The New Zealand Workers’ Union was told quite clearly that they could not expect«to cover tradesmen on the underground power-house project,” said Mr Molineux. The secretary of the Otago Employers’ Association (Mr F. W. McCullough) yesterday confirmed that the association was making the applications for total exemption. The association, he said, was arranging for the application forms to be filed with clerks of award in the four main centres. Each application would be filed in the city where the award of the particular union was originally filed. Because the majority of the 23 unions had Dominion awards, the majority of applications would be filed in Wellington, but one or two would be filed in Christchurch and three or four in Dunedin. The applications for ex-

emptions, said Mr McCullough, would be heard by Judge A. P. Blair, the employers’ representative (Mr W. N. Hewitt) and the employees’ representative (Mr A. Grant).

Opposition Mr McCullough said that a “certain amount of opposition” to the applications for exemption was expected. He said that exactly the same number of applications for exemption were being asked for this time as were asked for the £9m Deep Cove tailrace tunnel project when it went before the Arbitration Court in September, 1963. “It is history repeating itself,’’ he said. “It is really the same project, but it looks to me as if some unions will be more active than on the previous occasion.” The individual awards from which application for total exemption Would be filed within the next three or four days, said Mr McCullough, included those for general labourers, carpenters, boilermakers, bricklayers, cleaners and caretakers, coach and motor body builders, motor drivers, electrical workers, stationary engine drivers, factory engineers, metal trade employees, private hotel employees, laundry workers, motor trade employees, painters, plasterers, plumbers, stone-masons, storemen’s and packers, timber workers, tinsmiths and sheetmetal workers. The clerk of awards, in each of the main centres, he said, would send out copies of the applications for exemption to all the original parties to each award. Some idea of the magnitude of this task could be gained from the case of the drivers’ award, to which

there were 514 original parties. A difference in the application for the exemption in connexion with the underground power-house job, compared with the Deep Cove job, said Mr McCullough, was that at Deep Cove a separate agreement was negotiated with the hotel workers’ union. At Deep Cove only a dozen or 15 members of the hotel workers’ union were involved. A separate agreement was also made for a few donkeymen on board the Wanganelia at Deep Cove. They came under the seamen's union. The New Zealand Workers’ Union, said Mr McCullough, was geared to cover a major hydro-electric construction job, such as the underground powerhouse. When the secretary of the Canterbury Hotel Workers’ Union (Mr L. Short) was asked his union’s viewpoint on Utah Company’s application for exemption, he said: "If the company is prepared to extend the agreement already in force at Deep Cove, giving union coverage to the hotel workers’ union, then our union will not lodge any objection.” “But if it is not prepared to enter such an agreement, our union will most certainly enter a very strong objection,” he said.