Engineers To Meet

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31982, 8 May 1969, Page 16

Engineers To Meet

About 450 members of the Engineers’ Union employed by the National Airways Corporation at Christchurch Airport are expected to attend a meeting this afternoon to discuss the possibility of breaking away from the union and forming an Aircraft Workers’ Association. Two men from Auckland will attend the meeting to explain the reasons for the formation of the new association.

It was reported ta Auckland that 500 of the 550 members of the union working for Air New Zealand signed a form agreeing to resign from the Engineers’ Union. The break-away move is said to follow some months of dissatisfaction by engineers at the ’ indling of their affairs by the union. In a pamphlet circulated to his members in Auckland, the union secretary, Mr J. J. Crummey, says: “It appears that you are being told that if you had your own union you could accomplish almost anything simply by withholding your labour. “If attaining your objectives is that simple, then millions of trade unionists through the years have wasted a great deal of effort,” said Mr Crummey.