1976 bad year for stoppages

Press, 17 March 1977, Page 5

1976 bad year for stoppages

New Zealand had its worst year of industrial stoppages last year since 1951, the year of the waterfront strike.

Figures given in the Labour Department’s Monthly Abstract of Statistics this week show that in the year to November 30 last there weie 440.482 working days lost, compared with more than a million days in 1951. The figures for December, 1976, are not yet available. During the 11 months to November 30, 1976, there were 475 industrial stoppages, four times as many as in 1951. But the severity of the few big strikes in 1951 is indicated by their duration that

year — 3464 days, compared with 1842 days last year to November 30.

In that period, industrial stoppages involved 191,152 workers, compared with 36,900 in 1951.

Most stoppages last year were in meat export works, where there were 113, followed by water transport, with 71 stoppages. Meat workers lost an estimated $4,761,000 in wages during their dispute which focused on their demand for a travel-ling-time allowance. Altogether, 895 firms were affected by stoppages in the 11 months — more than double the number involved in the whole of 1975.