Freezing works clerks to start strikes: beef claim stops kill

Press, 7 April 1978, Page 1

Freezing works clerks to start strikes: beef claim stops kill

PA Wellington Freezing industry clerical workers will go ahead with 24-hour rolling strikes from midnight on Sunday. Talks yesterday between the union and the Minister of Labour (Mr Gordon) failed to resolve the pay dispute.

As well, beef killing stopped yesterday at the Whaikatu works tn Hawke’s Bay over a pay claim by slaughtermen. A dispute over shed agreements has closed the Alliance works in Southland, leaving thousands of stock in the >ards. The national secretary of the Freezing Industry Clerical Workers’ Union (Mr E. Duncan) said after the talks yesterday that the union would meet during the week-end to consider Mr Gordon’s request to take the dispute to arbitration. However, he said, it would be “physically impossible” to call off the strike before Monday. Mr Gordon said later he accepted that “they have a communication difficulty with their personnel that may render it impossible to alleviate Monday’s strike.” He had put arbitration proposals to the union representatives, who would now consult their members. Earlier yesterday the clerical workers’ union rejected a dispute settlement formula proposed by the Secretary of Labour (Mr G. Jackson). He proposed that the union resubmit the pay claims it withdrew from conciliation this week and send them to the new Arbitration Court on the basis of partial settlement. At conciliation talks on Monday, industry employ-

ers agreed to meet claims for a 7.5 per cent general wage increase and to write off the 1976 7 per cent cost-of-living order into a new hourly rate. However, the employers rejected a demand for an additional 48c to 50c an hour that the union said was needed to restore relativity with industry tradesmen set by the Wages Tribunal in 1972. It was that refusal which led to the union’s giving notice of a series of 24-hour rolling strikes beginning at midnight on Sunday. Asked if his proposal for arbitration took the matter any further than it was after the rejection of Mr Jackson’s proposals yesterday morning, Mr Gordon replied: “I think it did take it a little further. I spoke with the consensus view of the Government ... the likely reaction of the Government. I indicated the general view of the Cabinet to the freezing industry as such.” Mr Gordon said he would make a “specific report” to the Cabinet on Monday. The Government would then decide what action to take if the union rejected arbitration. He was not aware of the “absolute final offer” made by the employers. “All I know is that there is an apparent unbridgeable gap between the employers and the union that lias caused a breakdown in conciliation. That

has been abandoned, and so I step in in the role of a last-resort mediator,” Mr Gordon said. Beef killing at the Whakatu works, near Hastings, stopped yesterday as workers went on strike in support of pay increases which would lift some rates to $lO9 a day. Mr I. Cameron, general manager of the Hawke’s Bay Farmers’ Meat Company, which runs the works, described the claims as outrageous. The workers struck after giving three days notice of their intention. Mr Cameron said the company would not agree to any increases in beef contract payments. “The men in this section of the works are already very well paid, with remuneration based on hourly rates, plus incentive payments related to throughput,” he said. “For payment purposes there are three groups divided up according to the degree of skill needed for their job. “The rates now paid for a 71-hour day are about $7l for skilled butchers. $45 for semi-skilled, and $29 for unskilled to semiskilled.” These rates included freezing workers’ latest pay increases. Mr Cameron said the union demanded that the company increase the rates by an average of more than 60 per cent, which would give daily earnings

for the groups of about $lO9, $B5, and $52. Mr Cameron said the strike would not change the company’s attitude or force it into a “soft” deal. Eighty workers were going on strike, which, after today, would affect another 220 workers. “Regrettably, farmers will once more be inconvenienced, as we are in the peak of the beef season and there will be the usual flow-on effects to service industries and overseas markets,” Mr Cameron said. Until the strike, the kill was at a maximum of 750 cattle a day. The secretary of the East Coast branch of the Meat Workers’ Union (Mr T. Earp) told “The Press” last evening: “We have not claimed any set amounts; we are looking for a cost per beast killed in accord with the practice employed in other works in the country—basically unit cost figures which are now being paid in other places.” Mr Earp said the union’s main concern was to bring

the wages paid to the lowest-paid workers up to a national standard. A dispute over two shed agreements has closed the Alliance freezing works, with little indication of an early settement, says a report from Invercargill. Thousands of head of stock have been left in the yards, many for as long as two days, and some have had to be returned to farms. The next move will come today when a union departmental meeting will be followed by a full shed meeting, at which a formula for a return to work, proposed under the guidance of the secretary of the OtagoSouthland branch of the union (Mr E. M. Miller) will be considered. A dispute which prevented killing for one day at the Makarewa works in Southland arose because of a “misunderstanding” by workers of an interim decision by an industrial mediator, Mr W. Grills, said union sources yesterday. Work returned, to normal at 1 p.m. yesterday.