Factory still picketed

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33513, 19 April 1974, Page 12

Factory still picketed

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, April 18

A return to work will be considered tomorrow morning by the picketers who have closed the Otahuhu heavy engineering plant of Fletcher Bernard-Smith, Ltd, for the lasi three weeks.

The possibility of a settle, ment in the prolonged, anc

-i at times ugly, dispute developed at the end of a day in which the picketers at first defied the Government, the Federation of Labour, their own unions, the Supreme Court and their employers. At one stage it looked as though the Government would have to take punitive measures against the picketers — possibly deregistering them as union members—to end the closing of a key heavy' engineering plant. But during the afternoon the Auckland Trades Council disputes committee managed to arrange a meeting between the picketers’ job committee and the union officials involved. The meeting tomorrow is probably the last chance for a negotiated settlement before the Government takes action.