RUBBER WORKERS STOP IN PROTEST

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31632, 19 March 1968, Page 1

RUBBER WORKERS STOP IN PROTEST

One hundred and sixty workers at the Empire Rubber Mills in Christchurch have stopped work in protest against pay increases not being given to employees now on above-award wages.

The stoppage may spread to the company’s Auckland factory at Panmure where the same decision applies.

The secretary of the Canterbury Rubber Workers’ Union (Mr T. C. Fletcher) said the workers decided at a stop-work meeting yesterday morning not to return to work until the management took a more generous attitude towards the award. Another stop-work meeting will be held at 8 a.m. today to hear a report from the negotiations committee. The

committee will seek a conference with the management immediately afterward. Mr Fletcher said pay increases had been granted to workers at a conciliation hearing in Wellington last January. He said that there were four other points the workers wanted settled before they would consider returning to work. They wanted a guarantee from the management that when a worker was away on compensation, his particular job would not be filled permanently by someone else. The workers claimed that the sole judge of a person’s physical ability to continue his job should be a doctor, not the management. They also want the present day flat-rate bonus payments to be restored to the level at the time of an agreement with the management in December, 1963, said Mr Fletcher.

The meeting unanimously carried a resolution that no rubber worker shall suffer any decrease in the earnings he was receiving before the inception of the new award.