Travellers stack union meeting

Press, 17 March 1977, Page 6

Travellers stack union meeting

Commercial travellers stacked the annual meeting of the Canterbury’ and Westland Commercial Travellers and Warehouse Employees and Storemen and Packers’ Union in Christchurch last evening and voted themselves into a majority on the executive.

But attempts by the members to allow the secretary and president of the Federated Storemen and Packers and Warehouse Employees Association of Workers to attend the meeting with speaking rights were thwarted bv] the Canterbury union’s president (Mr F. Putt), who retired last evening as president. A motion was put to the meeting that Messrs P. J. Mansor and S. Anderson be allowed in, but the motion was overruled bv Mr Putt. Messrs Mansor and Anderson, who had come from Wellington and Dunedin to trv to put their case to the members, waited outside the conference hall at the tradeunion centre and made no attempt to force their wav in. They left after waiting outside the hall for about an hour. Mr Mansor said after thei meeting that the chairman (Mr Putt) had disobeyed a lawful direction from the members that he and Mr Anderson be allowed to attend.

"He should have been put out straight away.” said Mr Mansor.

Mr Mansor maintains that the Canterbury union, which last December voted 552-143 with 25 votes informal, to withdraw affiliation to the federation, is still affiliated and will remain so until it has fulfilled the legal requirements of withdrawal. The most important of these, he said, was that withdrawal could be made only by passing a resolution at a special meeting. Mr Mansor said he would now wait to see what the new executive would do. “If Mr Keenan (the Canterbury union secretary, Mr C. W. Keenan) does not obey lawful instructions from his

executive, then no doubt the executive will have no option but to suspend him,” Mr Mansor said.

“There is nothing in the constitution to say that the (secretary should be elected lor appointed,” he said. “In | the past, it has been an appointment. The executive can appoint anyone as a temporary secretary if they suspend . Mr Keenan, then advertise for I another secretary'.” Mr Mansor said that he 1 had obtained legal advice and I there was a 60-40 chance that if the Canterbury union disaffiliated from the federation, the awards covering Canterbury union members would not be valid and they would not have to belong to the union.

| He hoped that the next excutive would invite him to address the Canterbury members, and the matter could be settled amicably.

The other alternative which he had contemplated was to ask the Supreme Court for a claration on the validity of the December postal ballot on withdrawal conducted by the Canterbury union. ! “If the Supreme Court ruled that the vote was valid, then I would have asked it to rule that the national awards negotiated by the federation would not apply to Canterbury. This would create a chaotic situation,” he said. Mr Mansor said that his exclusion from last evening’s meeting was evidence of the way in which the Canterbury executive had blocked communication, rather than the other way round, as had been alleged by the Canterbury executive.

The annual meeting was permitted to vote on whether the news media should be allowed in. and the members voted overwhelmingly in fav-

our. The news media representatives sat through the two-hour meeting, which at no stage went into committee. Only 98 members attended the meeting, out of a total membership of about 2600. The union extends to South and Mid-Canterbury and includes the West Coast.

Mr J. Conway Jack was elected president. He is the only non-traveller elected at the meeting, according to a spokesman for the recently formed Canterbury Sales Representatives and Commercial Travellers Society of Workers, Which organised the turnout of about 50 travellers at last evening’s meeting. The travellers had no nomination for the presidency. However. Mr M. Mitchell, a traveller, defeated a former organiser, Mr R. J. Stubberfield, and Mr G. A. Cameron for the vice-presidency.

Travellers were elected to fill all seven positions on the executive. There were 13 nominations.

At the end of the’meeting, the acting president of the Commercial Travellers’ Society (Mr W. Pate), who was voted on to the Storeman and Packers’ Union executive, said that the travellers had put their names forward solely to “cover our tracks” and ensure that the travellers could form their own union. “While we remain in office, we have every intention of running it on a proper basis,” he said. “We do not intend to disrupt it, apart from getting exemption to form our own union.”

At a special meeting preceding the annual meeting, it was decided unanimously to proceed with a postal ballot asking members to approve or reject an amendment to the rules of the union which would exclude commercial travellers from coverage.