Travel allowance for meatworkers

Press, 19 October 1976, Page 20

Travel allowance for meatworkers

Disagreement between the meat freezing companies and the meatworkers’ union over the payment of travelling allowances may disrupt the beginning of the killing season. To those people who consider that all employees should be paid an allowance for travelling to work the submissions by the union will have some appeal. But, even to the supporters of the idea, the nature of the union’s claim—for a S2-a-day allowance for workers travelling more than 2 km —must seem far too rough and ready to be equitable. x Some awards contain provisions for the payment for travelling or for the cost of travel in special circumstances. The case for each has been argued on its merits. The freezing works do not appear to offer a special case, except in so far as many works are outside urban areas where many employees live. But work in the freezing industry is not poorly paid, though it is often hard work for some employees. This is far from being the most appropriate industry in which to press for travelling allowances. The pay is generally attractive enough to draw workers from far and wide.

One argument put forward in support of the claim is that the companies are likely to have a profitable season and can afford to pay. If the union proposed decreases in pay and allowances in bad seasons, this argument might command some respect Of course such an approach to award

claims would win little support. Furthermore, if the prices for meat exports this season turn out to be higher than in recent years the meat companies will not be the sole beneficiaries. The price schedule for farmers takes care of. that.

Even if the argument for travelling allowances were sound and fair, the time is certainly not ripe for undue increases in the costs of processing meat. But the time is unquestionably ripe for continued investment by the industry in its plant and equipment. Improvements have been going on for some years, but the job of modernising the industry has not been finished. It is into these improvements that any higher earnings by the companies should be directed. Thereby the industry will be preserving jobs for the future.

The pressure for this allowance seems to be little more than an attempt to disrupt the industry at a critical time, and a way to circumvent the restrictions on wages. The fact that some union officials would prefer discussion of the allowance to be deferred until an even more critical moment, when the works should be in full production, strongly suggests that somewhere in the leadership of the meatworkers are people who are more interested in upsetting production than in wanting members to get on with the job on terms that most employees would consider very satisfactory.