Works sacks 900, considers closing

Press, 2 September 1977, Page 1

Works sacks 900, considers closing

PA Auckland The Auckland Farmers’ Freezing Co-operative, Ltd, reached the end of its tether over wildcat strikes yesterday and dismissed its 900 Southdown workers who walked out on Monday for three days. Continuing strikes by the workers have led the works management to reconsider long-term improvements at the plant, and even the closing of the plant is believed to have been considered by the co-operative, which successfully runs other plants at Moerewa, Horotiu, and Rangiuru.

The men received dismissal letters from their foremen when they arrived at the plant yesterday morning to hold a meeting to consider any further action.

The three-day strike arose from a company refusal to pay compensation and legal costs to a man who had been found not guilty of stealing meat.

Southdown is the only plant at which “a mandatory two-day strike” still follows any unsuccessful attempt by the company or the police to investigate thefts of meat. Such strikes are against the policy of the Auckland Freezing Workers’ Union.

A company spokesman said that the future of the plant had been discussed with the Auckland Freezing Workers’ Union at meetings over the last two or three years.

The spokesman said: “It is a question of the advisability of investing in growth and development which could be uneconomic because of a volatile workforce.” A union official said the company had recently threatened to cancel plans for a SIM reconstruction of the boning department if union activity persisted over petty issues.

Earlier, the company’s industrial relations manager (Mr L. Lane) said that the company was “painfully aware” of the many illegal stoppages at the plant. “This latest strike left us in an impossible situation, with more than 3500 bobby calves left in the paddocks," he said. “Without the help of officers of the Auckland union, neighbouring companies, and their workers, carriers, and our own white-collar staff, the suffering and death toll of the calves would have been appalling. “The company has considered the question of this stoppage very carefully and we have decided to close the plant while we negotiate on satisfactory terms for a return to work.”

Mr said there were al readv manv ways open

for a satisfactory settlement of disputes at Southdown.

“These are not working satisfactorily and we are now forced to seek an undertaking that will prevent similar illegal stoppages,” he said. The company said that the cause of the protest which began this week’s walk-out was now no longer the main point to be settled.

“The real point at issue now is the abandonment of the disput.es procedure which leads to the other problems we have seen this week—and many times in the past,” said Mr Lane. The president of the Auckland Freezing Workers’ Union (Mr F. E. Barnard) said the Southdown men had “blatantly wiped" the disputes procedure. “We are not lily-white on this one,” he said. The union’s attitude was that having got over the bobby-calf question on Monday, if the men felt

they had a dispute they had grounds to win then there was a correct procedure to go through to test it.

“My attitude is that in any dispute which we think we are good enough to win we should be good enough to win it by going through the procedure,” Mr Barnard said. It is believed that tactically speaking, the men could not have picked a worse time to become involved in industrial action. The bobby-calf season is tapering off, there are no lambs about, and the works are having to seek enough cattle to keep the chains busy.

Canterbury freezing workers have not become involved in the Southdown dispute. They are members of the New Zealand Meat Workers’ Union, which is a separate union from the one covering the Southdown works — the Auckland Freezing Workers’ Union.