Rise For Wattle’s Staff

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32251, 20 March 1970, Page 26

Rise For Wattle’s Staff

(N.Z. Press Association)

HASTINGS, March 19. Wage increases ranging from 10 per cent to 15 per cent have been agreed to by J. Wattie Canneries and Unilever (N.Z.), Ltd, for food process workers in all their New Zealand fac-

Announcing the increase in Hastings this morning, Mr D. G. Nolan, general secretary of the Food Process and Chemical Union, said the increases were among the largest obtained for factory workers in recent years, and were especially significant because food processors led the country in the amount of overtime worked.

Men’s increases range from Blc to 11c an hour and women’s from 7c to 10c an hour. COST OF INCREASE

Sir James Wattie estimated this morning that the wage increases negotiated yesterday would cost his com-

pany at least $250,000 annually. He said this would have a further effect on prices and might also have repercussions on the export trade. With the rising cost of living a wage increase had to be expected, but unfortunately is would be a palliative and not a solution to the problem confronting New Zealand today, said Sir James Wattie.

“This latest wage increase is yet another addition to our costs. We cannot absorb it and in spite of the peculiar opinions of C.A.R.P. and the Otago Drivers’ Union rising prices are caused by rising costs.

“If there is any other com-mon-sense explanation I and many others would like to know what it is. Boycotts are not the answer,” he said. DRIVERS CRITICISED

Commenting on the Otago Drivers’ Union ban on Wattle’s and Unilever’s products, Mr Nolan said today th'at the two companies sold their products at the same prices as Auckland and Otago manufacturers yet had paid higher wages, even before the new increases.

lever was well ahead of manufacturers in Otago and Auckland in wages, conditions, facilities and safety programmes, yet in both food and soap manufacturing the companies with the best wages were being attacked by Otago and Auckland unions.

“It is a simple fact that unions in these districts carefully looked outside their own areas. It is also a fact that the Auckland unions and C.A.R.P. met to discuss beer prices, then shifted their attention from beer to canned goods because the Hotel Workers’ Union objected to abeer boycott,” Mr Nolan said.

“We have now increased even further the wages gap between Wattie’s and Unilever and other manufacturers, We suggest that the Otago Drivers’ Union, and other unions trying to prove their militancy, could assist to increase the low rates of wages paid to food processing and soap workers in Auckland and Otago,” Mr Nolan said.