Barmen Worried About Jobs

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31123, 28 July 1966, Page 1

Barmen Worried About Jobs

Dunedin barmen were losing their jobs through the liquor price war, said the assistant secretary of the New Zealand Hotel Workers’ Union (Mr L. N. Short) in Christchurch yesterday.

“The price war in Dunedin has reached quite terious proportions, to the extent that quite a few of our union members have lost their jobs," he said. “There is every probability that a lot more will lose their jobs if common sense doesn’t prevail among these publicans.” Mr Short returned from Dunedin yesterday after discussions in which it was agreed to end "self-service” in a bar opened a week ago in the Southern Cross Hotel. “If this sort of thing had not been stopped it would have spread to other hotels wanting to cut down on staff because of the price war,” he said. “Quite a number of barmen I spoke to in the short time I was there all agreed that they were in fear that their jobs might go at any time. “Basically, the price war is not the union’s business,” Mr Short said. “But we don't think our people should have to take the axe because two or three publicans want more or less to give away their liquor.

“Our people are going to be the first to suffer,” he said. “The hotels are selling beer and spirits at basically cost price and people are pouring in to buy it and hoarding it

You can’t blame the public—it’s the chance of their lives. What can you do to stop it? “All I could do was appeal to the working people of Dunedin and suggest that they are tending to create a situation where they are putting their fellow workers out of employment. “The local union will be watching for any possibility of taking action to right the situation and maintain employment of our people in these hotels,” Mr Short said.