N.I. Freezing Works Still Recruiting

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31349, 20 April 1967, Page 16

N.I. Freezing Works Still Recruiting

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, April 19.

As officials of freezing workers’ unions in Christchurch and Wellington today claimed the Government’s slowing down of the economy would cause more than 20,000 seasonal workers to be jobless this winter, freezing companies in Auckland, Taranaki and Hawke’s Bay were still recruiting men.

Earlier this week the secretary of the New Zealand Freezing Workers’ Association (Mr F. E. McNulty) said in Christchurch that hundreds of men would be walking the streets looking for work within the next six weeks if the Government did not take action.

He suggested that the Government should allocate funds to provide employment for freezing workers during the winter.

In reply the Minister of Labour (Mr Shand) said today that the problem of providing winter work for those temporarily unemployed was likely to be greater this year than in the past. He had no comment to make on Mr McNulty’s suggestion for winter funds for unemployed freezing workers.

The president of the Wellington Freezing Workers’ Union (Mr F. B. Thorn) said today that more than 20,000 workers, mostly seasonal and the backbone of the major exporting industries, would be jobless this year as a result of the Government’s import and economy freeze. “There is very little work available and freezing workers will be among the hardest hit,” he said. “They are already scrambling over one another’s backs looking for work.” But the secretary of the Auckland Freezing Workers’

Union (Mr T. P. Kelly) said today that the tendency in the North Island was for more men to be kept on throughout the year. Two officials from leading Auckland freezing companies both said they were shortstaffed and wanted all the men they could get Mr L. W. Lane, industrial officer for the Auckland Farmers’ Freezing Co-opera-tive, Ltd., said the muttonlamb season was continuing longer than normal and the beef season was beginning. “The seasons will overlap and we will need all the men we have got,” he said. In New Plymouth the situ-

ation was similar to Auckland.

The secretary of the Waitara Freezing Workers’ Union (Mr H. O. Carroll) said today there was not enough labour for the stock available. Mr Carroll said there was a greater stability in the work force in Taranaki. “It is the same men who return year after year to the freezers and these men have steady alternative jobs to go to in the slack season. “It could well be that a few of these alternative jobs may not be there because of the economic situation, but I don’t anticipate any real difficulty,” he said. In Hastings, Mr D. D. Wilson, district officer for the Department of Labour, said Hawke’s Bay freezing works were still looking for labourers and judging by newspaper advertisements, the district could still offer plenty of other work.