Hopes For End To Beer Strike

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31725, 8 July 1968, Page 1

Hopes For End To Beer Strike

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, July 7. The Auckland manager of New Zealand Breweries, Ltd (Mr L. G. Piper), hopes that talks tomorrow between the Federation of Labour and the Employers’ Federation will end (he strike which has cut supplies of the company’s beer to hotels throughout the province.

He said today that nearly all New Zealand Breweries hotels in and around Auckland were out of draught beer because of a strike by 35 company drivers. Some hotels could have exhausted stocks of bottled beer as well. The drivers—members of the Northern Drivers’ Union —stopped work on Tuesday when New-Zealand Breweries refused a request for a 7.6 per cent pay rise. Company staff will meet at 7.30 a.m. tomorrow to decide on future action.

The employers have offered to discuss whether to negotiate about the pay rise if the drivers return to work.

Mr Piper said he had told the union secretary, Mr G. H. Andersen, that the company hoped the meeting between the F.O.L. and the Employers’ Federation in Wellington tomorrow would encourage the strikers to go back to their jobs. The Minister of Labour (Mr Shand) called the Wellington talks in an attempt to improve industrial relations after the decision of the Court of Arbitration not to make a general wage order.

The seven-man executive of the F.O.L. will meet seven Employers’ Federation representative; at the Department of Labour at 2.30 pun. The president of the F.O.L. (Mr T. E. Skinner) said last

night that he hoped the talks would “come up with something” But, he said, “we are not prepared to go on talking for another six months.”

Mr Andersen said tonight that the Wellington conference was unlikely to affect the New Zealand Breweries strike. “If we receive some recommendation from the Federation of Labour about a return to work we would certainly give it some consideration,” he said. “But we have received no such recommendation.”

Drivers at the New Zealand Glass Company, Ltd, would meet at 7.30 a.m. tomorrow, he said. The company was givenjjntll tomorrow to reply to a union demand for a 7.6 per cent wage increase. Mr Andersen said the glass drivers would discuss what action they would take if the demand was refused. A mass meeting of employees of Dominion Breweries, Ltd, will be held at 10 a.m. tomorrow. The company has until Tuesday to answer union demands for a 7.6 per cent wage increase.

About 220 employees of James Hardie and Company, Ltd, Penrose, will hold a stopwork meeting tomorrow over the 7.6 per cent wage rise. The men are members of the Asbestos Workers’ Union.