Strike hits meat supplies

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33093, 7 December 1972, Page 18

Strike hits meat supplies

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, December 6. Today was a bad day for some Auckland butchers and housewives. Meat supplies ran low or ran out, prices rose, and drivers said they would ban deliveries after Friday.

Work stopped at the; Auckland abattoir nine days; ago when labourers refused: to handle lamb carcases until five men were removed from the killing chain. The labourers, supported by the Auckland Freezing Workers’ Union, say that the five men were employed only on a temporary basis pending a decision on a dispute 18 months ago. The abattoir management

is adamant that the decision, reached recently, does not mean that the five men should be removed from the chain. When members of the Auckland Meat Carriers’ Assocation stop deliveries, Auckland will be able to count on only 15 per cent of its nominal supplies. Higher freight Already many independent butchers can get no meat, and those who can are having to pay higher freight costs, which, in some cases, are being passed on to the consumer. The president of the Meat Carriers’ Association (Mr N. C. Taylor) said this evening that, in an effort to get the Government to step in and solve the dispute, his organisation hoped to stop any meat reaching Auckland shops. "Our drivers have lost 80 per cent of their work because of the dispute,” said Mr Taylor. “We want to get it solved quickly.”