Kinleith strike loss already $3M

Press, 4 October 1977, Page 3

Kinleith strike loss already $3M

Production losses have reached more than S3M as 3000 workers remain on strike at the N.Z. Forest Products mill at Kinleith. The dispute is almost a week old, and company officials and representatives of the Timber Industry Employees’ Union were still at a stalemate yesterday. But the dispute at the New Zealand Steel Company’s Glenbrook plant is over, and work resumed on the Wellington waterfront yesterday.

At Kinleith 14 unions are on strike. The Timber Workers’ Union is at the centre of the issue, and other unions refuse to return to work until the timber workers do.

[ Production stopped last I Tuesday when union warblers walked off the site in protest against a police search of a garage hand’s house.

The Timber Workers’ Union demanded an apology from the company, and maintained that an agreement existed between man= agement and the union over notifying union members of police searches or investigations of workers. A company spokesman said the dispute had shifted to recognition of the Kinleith sub-branch of the Timber Workers’ Union. The company was willing to negotiate with the union officials, but not with the Combined Council of Timber Workers’ Delegates, which was considered an illegal body. Timber workers will not meet until 7.15 a.m. tomormor to discuss the Kinleith issue.

The combined council of Timber Workers’ Delegates has called a mass meeting of timber workers to be held in Rotorua today. Workers from Kinleith, the Tasman Pulp and Paper Company Kawerau mill, the Kaingaroa Logging Company, the

Waipa State mill, and Forest Service workers from Kaingaroa are expected to attend.

A company spokesman said the strike was costing the Kinleith mill $500,000 a day in loss of production. Although work resumed at the Wellington waterfront yesterday another stop-work meeting will be held on Thursday morning to discuss progress in the shed and wharf supervisors’ pay dispute.

The 25 supervisors, whose strike has closed the Wellington container terminal for a week, yesterday voted to work in the meantime so that award negotiations could be held in Auckland. The dispute at the New Zealand Steel Company’s plant at Glenbrook, in» volving the Engineers’ Union is over, after a decision by the Conciliation Commissioner.

Under the terms of the compulsory conference called by the Minister of Labour (Mr Gordon), the

Conciliation Commissioner (Mr F. Gerbic) was given power to make a final and binding decision.

He ruled that the company’s ex gratia payment, based on bonuses and extra emoluments applying in similar industries, be increased 15 cents an hour.

The union sought more than 20c an hour. The increase will not take effect until October 11, when the company’s voluntary agreement with the union expires. Thus it will be linked to renegotiation of the agreement. The company’s personnel manager (Mr G. Hanley) said that his company sought a solution and must accept the decision. “You can’t be pleased if you receive a short sentence or a long one,” he said. “It’s still a sentence.

“If you believe in orderly procedures, you must accept the results of them. The union got something and we got a return to work,” said Mr Hanley.