Auckland Strikes To Continue

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31728, 11 July 1968, Page 1

Auckland Strikes To Continue

(New Zealand Press Associatioit) AUCKLAND, July 10. Nearly 800 brewery workers who met at the Auckland Trades Hall this morning decided to continue their strike at Dominion Breweries, Ltd, and New Zealand Breweries, Ltd.

Thirty-five brewery drivers were sacked when they did not arrive for work at New Zealand Breweries, Khyber Pass.

The national president of the Brewery Workers’ Union, Mr W. J. Knox, said union members would meet again at 10 a.m. on Friday. The union was always prepared to negotiate if the employers were willing to do so. About 600 members of the Hotel Workers’ Union are expected to attend a special meeting In the Auckland Town Hall at 10.30 a.m. tomorrow. The union’s secretary in Auckland (Mr G. Armstrong) said the men would consider future action about the breweiy strikes and the union’s claim for a 7.6 per cent rise. Most Auckland hotels are expected to be dry by the week-end, but Mr Armstrong said he had not heard of any hotel worker being dismissed. Auckland seamen will meet at the Trades Hall tomorrow to endorse a recommendation from their national executive that they should take direct action from Monday if the shipowners do not begin negotiations on a 10 per cent wage claim. The secretary of the Northern Drivers’ Union, Mr G. H. Andersen, said yesterday that Auckland oil company drivers had been refused negotiations on their 7.6 per cent demand. Delegates would meet on Friday to decide whether to call a mass stopwork meeting.

Several more unions took action today to get wage increases of 7.6 per cent. About 150 drivers and 50 engineers employed by Winstone, Ltd, have given the company until Friday to answer their claim, or they will meet on Monday to decide what action to take. Fifty electricians at the Otis Elevator Company, Ltd, have put

an identical proposal before their employers. More workers asked fob the increase at the strike-bound Penrose factories of James Hardie and Company, Pty, Ltd, and New Zealand Glass Manufacturers Company, Pty, Ltd, yesterday. At the glassworks, where drivers, engineers and electricians stopped work on Monday, 400 glassworkers claimed 7.6 per cent more in wages. Their union secretary, Mr T. E. Skinner (also president of the F.0.L.) will ask the company for a reply tomorrow morning and will convey it to a meeting of workers at 10 a.m.

James Hardie and Company received more wage demands today, from about 25 engineers and about six electricians. More than 200 asbestos workers are already on strike at the company.

At the Westfield freezing works, where freezing workers are demanding the 7.6 per cent rise, all other trade groups have lodged similar claims. Drivers at the quarry of Downer and Company, Ltd, Wiri, have also demanded the increase. So has the Auckland Gas Workers’ Union. The overtime ban by Auckland Electric Power Board linemen and strikes by steel riggers and engineers at the Glenbrook steel mill site have not yet been settled. In Wellington, the first dismissals from the New Zealand Breweries plant could be made on Monday, the manager of the company (Mr R. J. Harrison) said this afternoon.

“I certainly hope we don’t have to put anyone off but from tomorrow night there will be no work for about 80 of our staff of a 100,” he said. Only tradesmen would have work, mainly on maintenance duties.