Pay claim walk-out at abattoirs

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33382, 14 November 1973, Page 18

Pay claim walk-out at abattoirs

Labourers at the Christchurch City abattoirs walked off the job yesterday morning in support of a pay claim, and it seems almost certain the works will be shut until at least tomorrow.

The managing director of Canterbury Bye Products, Ltd (Mr K. R. Churchward) said his company, which runs the abattoirs, had had no word from the men of their intentions. “They just walked off the job after a meeting this morning. I haven’t the faintest when they are likely to be back,” he said. The secretary of the Canterbury branch of the Meat Workers’ Union (Mr W. R. Cameron) was in Wellington all day yesterday, and was unaware of the walk-out. Union representatives at the abattoir were not available last night for comment, but sources within the union said there would be no work at the abattoir today. I Mr Churchward said the action “appeared to be” over

his rejection of a pay claim by the labourers on Monday. The men had sought an “incentive rate,” he said, which he had rejected as not being justified. “They called it an incentive rate, but really, whichever way you look at it, it was an increase in the basic pay they were after. I can’t look at any basic pay increases under the present law anyway, even if I had been prepared to negotiate. But, by the same token, the claim was not justified,” Mr Churchward said.