Meat men walk out

Press, 14 April 1978, Page 6

Meat men walk out

1 N'ZPA Canberra iMeat workers began a four-day national strike from midnight yesterday as the ■ dispute over live-sheep [exports from Australia — apparently settled on Tuesday night — lingered on aniid threats of a take-over of abattoirs by militant i cattlemen.

The meat workers, about 6000 members of the Australian Meat Industry employees' Union, will not return to work until midnight on Sunday.

The meat workers decided |to go ahead with the stopi page in support of • the ; union’s claim for the ship'ment of two carcasses for every live sheep exported to [the Middle East and as a protest at the arrest erf 47 union pickets in Western Australia on Monday. The West Australian confrontation triggered Austrai lia s first national waterfront stoppage for 10 years and hastened the intervention of the Australian Council of Trade Unions president (Mr Bob Hawke). Mr Hawke got the watersiders and meat men to accept a settlement of the main dispute, but the meat workers protest strike went ahead against his advice. The national president of' the Cattlemen’s Union (Mr Graham McCamley) said that if the strike went beyond Sunday then his members would man the abac-1 toirs themselves to make; sure animals were processed. - The dispute appeared to; dc-escalate momentarily on' Wednesuay when the Federal Government announced it had decided to drop an injunction it had brought against officers of the Meat; Employees’ Union. ’ The dispute has delayed the export of more than 150,000 live sheep in both South Australia and Western Australia. 1