Return To Normal Work Urged

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32219, 11 February 1970, Page 1

Return To Normal Work Urged

The Minister of Labour (Mr Marshall) urgently requested the New Zealand freezing worker unions yesterday “to secure resumption of normal work to avoid possible developments which could have very serious consequences.”

In a telegram sent just before noon, Mr Marshall told the secretaries of all the

unions that return to the conditions of work before the dispute broke out was a longestablished requirement in such situations and applied to both sides “Neither party should negotiate under threat or duress,” he said Employers’ representatives yesterday repeated their offer to negotiate a new award, but said they were not prepared to negotiate until normal work was resumed The general secretary of the New Zealand Freezing Workers’ Association (Mr F. E. McNulty), said in Christchurch last evening that before normal rates of mutton killing could be resumed it would be necessary to meet the employers to clarify their proposals. In the past, he said, it had often taken three months or more to negotiate a new award, and much of this time had been lost because of deliberate delaying tactics by the employers. If a new award was to be negotiated at present it would have to be clearly understood that the first matter to be negotiated would be new rates for the mutton slaughtermen, and the award would have to be ratified and put into force as soon as possible.