Stop-work meetings by power stations

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34146, 6 May 1976, Page 18

Stop-work meetings by power stations

There was no reason not to go ahead with stop-work meetings nowbeing organised at power stations the secretary of the Canterbury branch of the Public Service Association (Mr J. M. McKenzie) said yesterday.

It had been reported that a series of one-hour stopwork meetings would be held between May 10 and May 14 at all power stations, and Mr McKenzie said these would go ahead. Eight power stations in the South Island will be affected: Highbank, Lake Coleridge, Arnold, Cobb River, Tekapo, Benmore, Roxburgh and Aviemore. The meetings will be to

protest against the Government’s decision to increase Electricity Department house rentals. Mr McKenzie said that because power station employees lived in such remote areas they should not be subject to the increase. However, a department spokesman said yesterday that he did not consider the power station workers to be any different from other civil servants such as policemen, Post Office and Ministry of Works employees who had to live in remote areas. Mr McKenzie said that although power station employees got a "remote area” allowance of about $6O a year it was “very little compared with the hardships they put up with.” He said that day-to-day items such as bread, meat

and newspapers were alt more expensive, and "the $6O did not go very far.” It was reported on April 30 that the department had shown that the Government would increase rents by $6.50 a week in urban areas and $3.50 a week in country Mr McKenzie said that this rise would come out of workers’ net wages, and once, tax was considered this could mean a reduction of $9 a week on gross wages.