Brewery dispute still on

Press, 23 November 1976, Page 6

Brewery dispute still on

(Industrial reporter)

The dispute which recently threatened beer supplies in Christchurch has still not been settled.

Representatives of the Canterbury Drivers’ Union and New Zealand Breweries, Ltd, will meet again next Friday under the chairmanship of a mediator, Mr W. Grills. The issue is whether the company should pay 25 of its brewery drivers for the two and a half days during which they were suspended in September during the strike by brewery workers.

Meanwhile the Government’s chief mediator (Mr P. Cranston) has ruled in favour of eight Palmerston North drivers suspended by the same company for four days last month without pay. However, in that case the suspension notices were believed to have been issued to the workers’ delegate, instead of to the workers themselves. The decision is therefore based on a techni-

cal point and cannot be held to be a precedent. Employers were given the right to suspend workers under the Industrial Relations Act Amendment No. 7 earlier this year. Workers may be suspended “where there is a strike, and as a result of a strike any employer is unable to provide for any workers who are in his employment and not on strike, any work that is normally performed by them.”