‘Strong’ union warning

Press, 22 June 1978, Page 4

‘Strong’ union warning

PA Auckland A strong union warning was issued yesterday that Woolworths (N.Z.), Ltd, should back down on its policy of seeking the Saturday opening of its supermarkets.

Mr T. H. de Thierry, the secretary of the Auckland Ehop Assistants’ Union, said that storemen, drivers, bank officers and clerks, even policemen, would be required to service the Saturday opening of .arge stores. Mr de Thierry said the Woolworths shops in Australia had begun selling only food lines on Saturdays, but bow sold variety lines. "Once an exemption is granted for supermarkets, they will go into other lines. They will use Saturday trade In supermarkets as in argument that there is a demand for other lines as well,” he laid. The Shop Employees’ As-

sociation had asked Woolworths to withdraw the submissions they made to the Shop Trading Hours Commission on the review of goods approved for week-end sale. The union has informed the Federation of Labour of the situation, and is calling stopwork meetings of Woolworths employees.

Woolworth’s marketing controller (Mr R. F. Parsons) said the union had not approached the company directly to ask for the submission to be withdrawn. “This is a union attempt to isolate us because we are honest enough to say what we think. It will be a sad day for democracy when we can’t,” Mr Parsons said. Woolworths did not expect to withdraw the submission, but was prepared to talk to trade union representatives if the need arose. Mr Parsons said that

Woolworths would encourage staff in its 48 supermarkets to attend the union stopwork meetings expected to start next week.

They woul be encouraged to attend the meetings to ensure they knew “both sides of the story” on Woolworth’s Saturday trading moves. The company’s side would be given to them by supermarket managers, each of whom had a copy of the firm’s full submissions to the Shop Trading Hours Commission, he said. The Shop Employees’ Association National Council meeting in Wellington recommended that affiliated unions call the stopwork meetings. Delegates of the Canterbury Shop Assistants’ Union will meet on Monday to decide whether to call special meetings of members in the Canterbury area to discuss the matter.