“DOMINION” DISPUTE Journalists Discuss Company’s Action

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31907, 7 February 1969, Page 1

“DOMINION” DISPUTE Journalists Discuss Company’s Action

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, February 6, A further meeting was held tonight between the management of the Wellington Publishing Company and the Wellington Trades Council in the dispute between the company’s management and the Wellington Printing Trades Union.

The meeting between representatives of the two sides was adjourned from Tuesday evening.

After a meeting between the two parties tonight the secretary of the Wellington Trades’ Council (Mr T. Hill) said: “A slight advance has been made in the discussions and we shall continue to negotiate early next week.” The managing director of the Wellington Publishing Company (Mr J. A. Burnet) said the company had suggested a return to work under the terms of the company’s previous offer—an extra $1.25 for Saturday work on the “Sunday Times”—and that both sides submit to independent arbitration as soon as possible. A two-hour stop-work meeting was held this afternoon by members of the Wellington Journalists* Union employed by the company. The union president, Mr W. Page, said after the meeting that journalists had been placed in an invidious position by the management’s decision to employ new labour to replace the company's former printers. The Journalists’ Union, and particularly its members employed by the company, must now reconsider the position, Mr Page said. Before the management’s decision to employ outside non-union labour, the Journalists' Union had taken no side in the dispute and had offered to do anything it

could to help bring the two parties together. The union had instructed journalists not to do any work normally done by the printers. TALKS WITH MINISTER The Minister of Labour (Mr Shand) met the Wellington Trades Council for an hour and a half today. He said after the meeting that his role as Minister of Labour was to help avoid disputes and bad settlements which might lead to other disputes, and to help protect the public interest. The purpose of the two meetings—one with the unionists and one with the company’s management—was to ensure that they understood the facts as seen from the outside and to suggest lines which they might explore.

It is believed that moves are being made by trade unionists to put out a daily morning and a Sunday newspaper in Wellington in competition with the “Dominion.” Plenty of out-of work printers were available, as well as some plant and equipment, one union srid. It was not immediately clear who would provide the copy and what financial reserves were available for the venture. ARBITRATION SOUGHT

Mr Burnet said today that once again he wanted to make it clear that the company had always been ready to place the dispute in the hands of an arbitrator. But time and again the printers had refused arbitration. “Mr W. H. Clement has claimed that I have had wide experience in industrial matters,” Mr Burnet said. “Surely Mr Clement, as president of the New Zealand Printing Trades Union and secretary of the Wellington Printing Trades Union, has also had wide experience in correct industrial procedure and therefore should have been able to put any such matters right at any moment.” Mr Burnet said that although several references had been made to dismissals of printers, in fact no-one had been dismissed. “At 11.45 a.m. last Friday it became clear that unless some finality was reached and the printers resumed work on the ‘Sunday Times,’ any further delay would make it impossible for the company to produce the ‘Sunday Times’,” he said.

“At noon the printing foremen were asked once again

to give ‘Sunday Times’ work to tradesmen.

“This was done. Two men refused to do such work and were told they were dismissed, to collect their belongings, and to leave the building.

“They immediately consulted their union delegate, who asked me to withdraw the notices while chapel representatives attended a meeting at the Trades Hall. “I agreed to withdraw the dismissal notices but asked that a decision be reported back to me at 3 p.m., thus allowing them three hours. “As time for the production of the ‘Sunday Times' was then vital, this was the maximum delay the company could permit.

“No-one reported back at 3 p.m. and the night staff failed to report for duty. The day staff left the building.

“If the men had come back at 3 p.m. with a decision not to resume normal work on the ‘Sunday Times’ they would have been dismissed.” The Wellington Printing Trades Union said in a statement today that the basic rate for a day worker for a 40hour five-day week was $50.52, and not $6O as stated by Mr Burnet in a television interview.

To average $BO a week, as claimed by him, a day worker would need to work the equivalent of a seven-day week, the statement said.