Freezing workers agree to return to work

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33487, 19 March 1974, Page 2

Freezing workers agree to return to work

(N.Z. Press Association) DUNEDIN March 18. Men at the Bumside works of the New Zealand Refrigerating Company decided this morning to return to normal work -tomorrow morning. Their dispute, which has lasted a week, will now be dealt with at national level.

The secretary of the Otago and Southland Meat Workers’ Union (Mr A. J. Kennedy) said the decision was made at a meeting this morning of Bumside freezing workers after the receipt of a letter from the Labour Department. The letter asked that the ban on use of the machinery under dispute be lifted to enable the situation to be dealt with at a national level.

Killing at the works stopped last Monday after a dispute concerning machinery used for lowering stock carcases from floor to floor. The men said that the method was slower than the former method (shutes) and lowered their contract earnings. At another meeting of

the union this morning the dispute at the Dunedin meat packing plant of the Primary Producers Cooperative Society, Ltd, in which 20 men stopped work for a week, was settled, Mr Kennedy said.

The men had returned to work while negotiations were held unde- a mediator last Friday. The meeting this morning confirmed the decision reached on Friday, Mr Kennedy said.

Meanwhile trade unions and employers at the Longburn freezing works, near Palmerston North, have both agreed to the setting up of a committee of inquiry into industrial relations at the works. The Minister of Labour (Mr Watt) told a press conference in Wellington tonight that he had just received word that both parties had agreed to the committee.

“This is very good indeed. It is the best news I’ve heard for a while," he said. Mr Watt said he would choose an independent chairman for the three-

man committee, while unions and employers would nominate one representative each.