Meat workers may take more action

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34109, 23 March 1976, Page 2

Meat workers may take more action

aland Associate

WELLINGTON, March 22.

Further action by freezing workers can be expected unless employers back down on an issue which today closed freezing works all over the country, the , general secretary of the .Meat Workers' Union (Mr F. ■ E. McNultv) said today.

“If the employers refuse to meet us there will he no new award and no freezing worker in the country would stand by and do nothing if that happened,*’ he said. "It will be a very serious situation indeed.” Behind the dispute is the insistence bv both the union and the freezing companies to have their own applications for a new agreement >

tabled at the Conciliation Council. The union says that, while it is prepared to accept the employers’ counter claims, it is not prepared to accept the employers’ application, as in the past. The reason for the union's change of heart lies in growing discontent among the trade union movement on the cross-citation procedure, which enables employers to make applications for new awards, just as unions do. The unions believe their traditional right to file claims

for a new award is being, eroded. The validity of the cross-: citation procedure is now the 1 subject of an action before ithe Industrial Court in respect of the Tramway Workers’ Award. Today’s stoppage by the 24.000-strong union, which' I closed the country's 39 works, would cost companies I an estimated $Tm, the execu-i tive director of the New Zea-j land Freezing Companies' As-1 :sociation (Mr P. D. Blomfield): said. The stoppage would not; change the companies’ stand, he said. A tentative date for fur-; ther conciliation talks had been set down for mid-April. ■ but the issue at the heart of today's stoppage would have Ito be resolved before then, he said. Mr Blomfield has asked the Meatworkers’ Union to refrain from industrial action until the current award dispute is clarified. Mr Blomfield said any industrial action would only harm the farming community and New Zealand’s export markets without clarifying an interna) problem. The demand would set a dangerous precedent, Mr Blomfield said.