Big union plan for distribution jobs

Press, 8 December 1976, Page 1

Big union plan for distribution jobs

Leaders of the 30,000strong Shop Employees’ Association want to amalgamate with the Drivers’ Federation and the Storemen and Packers’ Federation and unions to form a gigantic distribution workers’ federation representing up to 60,000 workers.

This was decided by the executive council of the association in Christchurch yesterday. Its secretary (Mr B. Alderdice) said after the meeting that the Drivers’ Federation would be asked next week for its views on such a move. Tentative soundings had already been made, and the association had received “optimistic comments” said Mr Alderdice. The association also agreed to invite the Storemi and Packers’ Federation. which does not include Auckland and may not include Canterbury if its members decide to opt out. These unions would be invited also to join the new combined federation, said Mr Alderdice. He said the decision had no connection with the

suggestion made by the Federation of Labour in October that unions should form themselves into nine major unions to combat the Government’s new industrial legislation and cushion the effects of its punitive measures. ' The association had been considering the matter for somr time, but had decided the time was now right for amalgamation. This was mainly because he would resign as secretary of the association from next March and concentrate on his work as secretary of the Canterbury Shop Assistants’ Union. “I have felt for a while that I have been overcommitted,” said Mr Alderdice, who is also a labour councilloi on the Christchurch City Council. “There are too many unions, and someone has to make the first move,” said Mr Alderdice. “Unless some federal organisation makes a move, nothing will be done,” he said. He said the advantages of a distribution workers’ federation were that it

would bring together workers in a similar type of industry, and would give shop assistants greater bargaining power.

Mr Alderdice denied that the move was prompted in any way by the clause in the new industrial Relations Amendment No. 3 which gives the Minister of Labour the power to call fo r a ballot on compulsory membership of any union.

Some union leaders believe that if a ballot was called of shop assistants’ unions some would vote to go voluntary, and that this would weaken them. Asked how shop assistants might feel about belonging to a federation comprising workers who had resorted to direct action while shop assistants were generally less inclined to take direct action, Mr Alderdice said that shop assistants swamped drivers in numbers. “The purpose of the amalgamation is to bring unity in working together. By a union getting bigger, it doesn’t mean that we will work as ‘we’ and ‘they’,” he said.