Union pushes Mr Tait out

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33962, 1 October 1975, Page 1

Union pushes Mr Tait out

The Christchurch bookshop proprietor and employee, Mr Gordon Tait, has been banned from meetings of the executive of the Canterbury and Westland Shop Assistants’ Union, of which he is an elected member. A meeting of the executive on Monday passed a motion of no confidence in Mr Tait, and excluded him from executive meetings. The meeting voted that both motions be discussed at the half-yearly general meeting of the union on October 28. Mr Tait said yesterday that it was not clear why the motion had been passed,

and the union secretary (Mr B. Alderdice) said he was not prepared to discuss the reasons, as they concerned the executive only. On September 16, Mr Tait accused the union of secrecy, and a lack of democracy, when he addressed the North Christchurch Jaycees. He said yesterday that he thought this was the reason for Monday night’s vote, and that the reports of his speech had been called “nothing but rubbish and lies” by the executive. Mr Tait, who holds 99 per cent of the shares in the bookselling company he manages, was elected to the executive in April, and since then, the union has tried to have its rules changed to exelude persons with a shareholding of more than 50 per cent in a shop. The Industrial Registrar refused to register this change, which would have excluded Mr Tait from his present position. Mr Alderdice said yesterday that the proposed rule change was to be heard by the Industrial Court, but as yet no date had been set.