Drivers To Stop For Two Hours

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31086, 15 June 1966, Page 18

Drivers To Stop For Two Hours

All lorries, delivery vans, and other vehicles driven by metropolitan members of the Canterbury Drivers’ Union would stop next Tuesday morning while the drivers held a stop-work meeting in the Civic Theatre for about two hours from 8 a.m„ said the secretary of the union (Mr A. S. Roberts) last evening.

This decision, he said, was reached by the full executive of the union last evening. A similar stoppage would take place in Ashburton on June 29. Essential community services. such as those by local bodies, ambulances, passenger buses, and taxis, he said, would not be affected. “Meagre Wage Offer” Mr Roberts said the dispute arose from a meagre wage offer made by the employers in conciliation for the New Zealand award. The union expected from 800 to 900 drivers in the Christchurch metropolitan area to attend the Civic Theatre meeting. The dates of similar meetings in Timaru, Leeston, Rangiora, and the Hawarden and Culverden areas, he said, had yet to be decided. The public and the drivers in these areas would be given plenty of notice. Mr Roberts said the union’s executive committee regretted if anyone was going to be inconvenienced. But the union felt that the only way to inform members was by stop-work meetings. Exemptions Mr Roberts said that any applications for exemptions

from the interruption of services would be treated on their merits. Such applications for services such as supplies to hospitals, orphanages and old people’s homes, he said, should be made to the union secretary. Once the stop-work meetings were over in Christchurch and Ashburton, all drivers attending would be asked to report straight back to work. This included those about to start long-distance transport runs.

He said he understood that the national office of the Drivers’ Union had approached the Federation of Labour for its support while the stopwork meetings were being held.