JURISDICTION IN DISPUTE

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31306, 28 February 1967, Page 18

JURISDICTION IN DISPUTE

The South Island Conciliation Commissioner (Mr S. W. Armstrong) had no power to make a decision in the present Christchurch rubber factories go-slow dispute, said the secretary of the Canterbury Rubber Workers’ Union (Mr T. Fletcher) yesterday.

Mr Fletcher said he did not want to see an issue being made of how busy Mr Armstrong happened to be at present. No one was more aware than the union of Mr Armstrong’s heavy engagements till Easter. ‘‘Mr Armstrong is chairman of the disputes committee and, as such, he is only chairman in the hope of the two parties making an agreement across the table,” said Mr Fletcher. Mr Fletcher said he would be delighted to see a trade union leader as chairman of the disputes committee. By 5 p.m. yesterday he had received no reply from the district superintendent of the Department of Labour (Mr C. D. Macan) as to whether the managements of the three rubber factories involved in the dispute had accepted an offer made by carbon black process workers yesterday. Not one of managements of the three rubber factories involved in the dispute had replied to his offer by 5 p.m., said Mr Fletcher. The offer was for the carbon black process workers at the three factories to stop their go-slow policy from midnight on Thursday to enable a disputes committee to consider the issues on Friday. The go-slow policy was adopted last Tuesday by the process workers who were seeking the same penalty rates as their Wellington counterparts. In one category this was 3d an hour and in another Id an hour. The factories involved are those of Dunlop New Zealand, Ltd., Woolston, The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, Papanui, and the

Empire Rubber Mills, Ltd., Woolston. The offer to go back to normal production, at midnight on Thursday, said Mr Fletcher, was to enable the disputes committee to function. W’hen the union’s decision was referred to the three companies, a spokesman said that last Friday the companies had accepted terms submitted to them by the Labour Department for a meeting next Friday to discuss the payment for carbon black. Those terms included an immediate resumption of full work as a prerequisite to such a meeting. “The union at its stop-work meeting today did not accept these terms and consequently the proposed meeting must lapse,” said the spokesman. “The companies will continue to pay the special rates fixed for this class of work by the new Rubber Workers’ Award made on October 5 after a full agreement was reached in conciliation council on claims filed by the union. “It is that agreement which the union is now attempting to repudiate,” he said.