Dispute over men’s hair

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32848, 23 February 1972, Page 18

Dispute over men’s hair

(By our industrial reporter)

A dispute over men’s hair cost 400 freezing workers a day’s pay yesterday, and lost the Islington freezing works a day’s production.

In accordance with hygiene regulations, Department of Agriculture inspectors gave instructions on Monday that assistant slaughtermen with long hair should wear hair nets to prevent contamination of the meat.

The manager (Mr F. H. Davis-Goff) expected no difficulty over the instruction. Hair nets were already being worn in the beef slaughterhouse and in the boning room, and in other freezing works throughout New Zealand.

Union officials, according to Mr Davis-Goff, were not only told that the Islington management would supply nets for the assistant slaughtermen, but were shown the nets, awaiting issue on a foreman’s desk. SUBORDINATES’ ACTION

But according to the secretary of the Canterbury

Freezing Workers’ Union (Mr S. Amst), several of the manager's subordinates told the long-haired men to get their hair cut or look for other jobs. More than 100 assistant slaughtermen held a stopwork meeting first thing yesterday morning—and the slaughtermen then asked the management if they would be paid while they were held up by the meeting of the other workers. Mr Davis-Goff sent a messenger to ask how long the meeting would last—and was told it had no idea. Faced with the possibility of a long hold-up, he told the slaughtermen they would not be paid, and so they went home.

The assistant-slaughter-men’s meeting finished at 8.40 a.m., but by that time there was no work available for them or for about 150 other freezing workers, as ■ the slaughtermen had already left. The outcome of the meeting? A request to the managenjent that it supply hair nets. “RIDICULOUS” Mr Davis-Goff said yesterday afternoon that the whole affair was ridiculous. Told of the attitude alleged to have been adopted by several of his subordinates, he said it was the first he had heard of it. If the union officials had come to him, he said, the whole thing could have been straightened out in two minutes.