Unions may act to back travel claim

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33819, 16 April 1975, Page 2

Unions may act to back travel claim

(N.Z. Press Association)

AUCKLAND, April 15. Industrial action in support of union claims for a travelling allowance of about $1.20 a day will begin after tomorrow.

Tomorrow afternoon officials of seven unions involved in the transport industry — drivers, storemen, engineers, electricans, clerks, labourers, and carpenters — will meet to plan their campaign for the allowance. Four months of negotiations with employers on the issue have failed to produce any agreement on the claim,

and some unions will definitely turn to strike action to win what their members want.

An organiser for the Northern Drivers Union, Mr J. B. Willis, said tonight that a full meeting of delegates from his union had already voted in favour of direct action on the issue. He believed the Storemen and Packers Union had done the same.

Mr Willis said he expected the pattern of direct action to be the same as that adopted before Christmas, when drivers with several firms staged a series of rolling strikes to back the claim. “Our members are ready to take action on this issue,” he said. “Just what happens will be a matter for the men themselves to decide. I would expect, though, that one or two jobs will stop altogether while at others there will be one-day or two-day stoppages. “Of course, this time the action by our members will be backed by action by the members of the other unions involved in the claim.” Mr Willis said the claim for a travelling allowance was based largely on the increasing amount of time and expense involved in travelling to and from work. The latest increase in the price of petrol, and the proposed 25 per cent increase in Auckland Regional Authority bus fares, had only worsened this situation. The union campaign for such a travelling allowance is growing rapidly. A number of unions have included claims for travelling allowances in their proposals for new awards. A remit to the annual conference next month of the Federation of Labour calls on the trade union movement to back the campaign.