Fitters return to work

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32678, 6 August 1971, Page 2

Fitters return to work

Christchurch maintenance fitters voted unanimously to return to work from midnight last night, after having been on strike since Tuesday morning in support of their national wage claim.

A meeting of about 440 fitters employed under the r factory engineers’ award yes- t terday morning carried a vote t on voices to rescind Tues- i day’s decision to go on strike i at least until Monday. The secretary of the Canterbury branch of the Engineer’s Union (Mr L. Fortune) told the men that the employers had agreed to conciliation proceedings, to start . in Wellington on August 20. , Mr Fortune told the meeting that the date for conciliation was much earlier than might have been expected, 1 and was a result of the ac- ' tion taken by the Christchurch workers. “I believe we will receive the relativity we are looking for as the employers have 1 agreed to go back to conciliation,” said Mr Fortune. 11 believe they will be thinking the right way. 1

He asked the meeting to make the decision to go back to work a unanimous one, as this would show the employers that the workers were a unified body. During the dispute several dispensations had been made to employers where hardship could have occurred, said Mr Fortune. An example was a dispensation granted where thousands of chickens would have died if strike conditions had been insisted on. “This would show even our friend Mr Muldoon that we are not irresponsible,” said Mr Fortune. When a union member called out, “Whose friend?”, Mr Fortune said that even union secretaries made mistakes. He said he was sure that on August 20 the union would receive relativity. If not it would meet again.