Canterbury Drivers To Hold Meeting

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31724, 6 July 1968, Page 1

Canterbury Drivers To Hold Meeting

Christchurch brewery drivers and brewer* workers will meet on Monday to decide whether to take action to support brewery drivers in Auckland, and representatives of the Canterbury Hotel Workers’ Union and the Canterbury Drivers’ Union are expected to meet the Christchurch manager of New Zealand Breweries to begin discussions for an increase in wages for all brewery workers in Christchurch.

The drivers will meet on Monday morning, and on Monday evening a general meeting of the Canterbury Hotel Workers’ Union will be told of the ramifications of the dispute. The hotel workers would be asked to indicate whether they would support the brewery workers if required, said the union’s secretary (Mr L. Short) yesterday. If th-: Christchurch brewery drivers took the same action as the Auckland brewery drivers, the other brewery workers in Christchurch would be almost certain to support them. The secretary of the Canterbury Drivers’ Union (Mr N. L. Dunnill) said that the

results of the meeting of Christchurch brewery drivers would be conveyed to a meeting of the council of the Drivers’ Federation in Wellington on Tuesday. The Wellington meeting would decide what national action would be taken by brewery drivers to support the Auckland drivers. ' Mr Dunnill said that the federation was affiliated to the Federation of Labour, and at Thursday’s special meeting called by the F.O.L. executive, it had fully supported the F.CX.’s policy of unions seeking increases in wage rates for their workers.

The Drivers’ Federation, he said, intended to seek a 7 per cent wage increase.