Hotel Stocks Low

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

Hotel Stocks Low

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, July 5. Several Auckland hotels ran out of draught beer tonight and hundreds more throughout the province will be down to bottled stocks by Monday. The 35 drivers employed by New Zealand Breweries, Ltd,

in Auckland, met again today and decided to continue their strike.

They stopped work on Tuesday when New Zealand Breweries refused to give them a 7.6 per cent rise. Brewery workers in Wellington and Christchurch are asking the company for the same increase.

The national president of the Brewery Workers’ Union, Mr W. J. Knox, of Auckland, said that unless the company was prepared to negotiate

very quickly it could become a national dispute. Mr Knox is also a member of the executive of the Federation of Labour. Dominion Breweries, Ltd, has until Tuesday to reply to a demand by its 40 Auckland drivers for a 7.6 per cent rise. The company was still considering the claim today. A mass meeting of all workers employed by the Ann will be held at 10 a.m. on Monday. Auckland Hotel Workers’ Union delegates met today and decided that members would make only normal deliveries of Dominion Breweries beer, to prevent hotels stockpiling. The delegates also decided to declare black any hotel at which full-time men were laid off because of the drivers' strike. The company has told the Northern Drivers’ Union, to which the -striking Auckland drivers belong, that it will discuss whether to negotiate about the pay rise if the men return to work. A meeting of all New Zealand Breweries staff is planned for 7.30 a.m. on Monday. The secret .ry of the Drivers’ Union, Mr G. H. Andersen, does not think the men will accept the company’s proposal. New Zealand Breweries supplies draught beer to at least 400 hotels, clubs and service canteens in the Auckland province. The company’s Auckland manager, Mr L. G. Piper, said tonight that they would probably all be “dry” by Monday. He did not know how long stocks of bottled beer would last “We have made no progress,” he said. “We have issued no dismissal notices meantime because we are hopeful of a more realistic approach to the problem at the stop-work meeting on Monday morning.”