TV strike threat

Press, 15 November 1977, Page 1

TV strike threat

Christchurch television production workers have decided to consider strike action if no acceptable offers on their pay claims have been made by their employer before November 28. Mr Russell Garbutt, chairman of the broadcasting sub-group of the Public Service Association, said yesterday that a stopwork meeting yesterday between 10 a.m. and noon had been deliberately nondisruptive to programme transmission. But if the workers took strike action later in the month, transmission would be disrupted and possibly would have to close down. Four groups of television

production staff are involved in the dispute which has been going on, in the case of one group, for more than a year. Those involved are production secretaries, technical producers, and film and programme workers. Mr Garbutt said that the meeting had registered a strong protest at delays in reaching a satisfactory settlement, to the pay claims and resolved to consider withdrawing services if no acceptable offer was made by noon on November 28. “We have recommended to the P.S.A. that the withdrawal of our services take the form of six-hour stoppages over four days, with

each of the four groups involved stopping work on one day only,” he said. On the first day, production secretaries would stop work, on the second day technical producers would be out, on the third day it would be film w'orkers and on the fourth day, the programme workers would stop work, said Mr Garbutt.

In this way, television transmission would be only partly affected for the first three days, causing only partial close-downs, but on the fourth day, the sixhour stoppage by programme workers would bring a complete closedown in transmission for that period, he said.