HOTEL DISPUTE CONTINUES Offer Of Award Talks Rejected By Union

Press, Issue 32345, 10 July 1970, Page 1

HOTEL DISPUTE CONTINUES Offer Of Award Talks Rejected By Union

(Staff reporter and N.Z..P.A .) The Hotel Association of New Zealand offered yesterday to begin immediate negotiations for a new award for hotel workers, but this was rejected by the national secretary of the Hotel Workers’ Federation (Mr G. Armstrong).

Unless some other agreement can be reached today between the employers and workers, Christchurch hotel workers will go ahead with tomorrow’s strike and 87 city and suburban hotels will be closed for the day.

Wellington hotel workers struck yesterday and plan to stay out until Monday. Many of the capital’s hotels were fully booked but had only proprietors, managers and receptionists available to look after the guests. In most cases all they were able to do was provide the guests with linen to make their own beds. One-day strikes will also be held today in Auckland, Rotorua and Dunedin. The chief executive of the Hotel Association of New Zealand (Mr J. J. Williams) said yesterday that the hotel industry was not in an economic situation to meet the union’s claim for a 30 per cent wage increase, although it did concede there was some justification for an increase as a result of the general wage escalation of recent months. “For this reason, the association has offered to bring the award forward for immediate negotiation as has been done with several other large

national awards.” Mr Williams said. “It must be borne in mind that if any increase is granted to the workers this will be reflected in liquor and accommodation charges, because hotels are simply not in the position to absorb any increased cost," Mr Williams said. Rejecting the offer, Mr Armstrong said it gave no guarantee of a wage increase and the association was just trying to delay the issue. The nation-wide strikes now being held are in protest against two grievances: that the employers have declined to discuss wages before July 22, and that they have failed to make any offer of their own. Earlier Offer

A Christchurch union official said last evening that the workers would have accepted a 5 per cent wage increase if it had been made early enough. Now the workers were up in arms, and it would be much harder to reach a settlement There are two award rates for barmen, but in Christchurch the rate usually ap-

plicable is 93.7 c an hour for 40 hours from Monday to Friday. On a national basis, the majority of barmen are on the bare, award rate, although in Christchurch a substantial number receive moderate above-award payments.

One of the anomalies of the present situation is that some chefs in leading hotels receive $5OOO a year and more, although they are only entitled to $5l a week under the award. There are some half-dozen of these $5OOO men in Christchurch, and it is reported that they all attended this week’s stop-work meeting. They are among the highest paid workers ever to go on strike in New Zealand.