OVERSEAS TOUR

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31568, 4 January 1968, Page 8

OVERSEAS TOUR

Trade Union Secretary The general secretary of the New Zealand Freezing Workers’ Association (Mr F. E. McNulty) will next month visit Italy, the Soviet Union, Britain and probably France on behalf of a group of trade unions. He will be the only New Zealand delegate to conferences in Turin sponsored by the World Federation of Trade Unions. The first, to begin on February 1, will be held in association with U.N.E.S.C.O. on literacy in the world. The second will be on world vocational guidance training. Mr McNulty said that vocational training had become of major importance to the trade union movement. It embraced not only training from the school level but the entire question of mechanisation and automation. This created a great need for the retraining of workers. At the conference Mr McNulty will report on vocational training in New Zealand.

Mr McNulty said that while he was in the Soviet Union he hoped to see what was involved in the regulations on the importation of New Zealand meat. He might make similar studies in Germany and Sweden, depending on his itinerary and the time available.

“The changing developments in meat export today are affecting the workers in the meat industry,” said Mr McNulty. “I hope to gain information that could benefit the New Zealand meat industry and industry in general. “I am going to visit representatives of the Food Workers’ Union in the Soviet Union which has 2m members. They handle all workers in the food industry. “I hope also to make inquiries about the possibilities of increasing bilateral trade between New Zealand and the Soviet, particularly the buying of New Zealand wool.” Mr McNulty said his tour might take two months.