Conciliator achieves settlement for Ocean Beach

Press, 23 June 1978, Page 1

Conciliator achieves settlement for Ocean Beach

PA Invercargill The Ocean Beach freezing works will resume killing on Monday, when killing may also resume at the Makarewa works. Both works have been closed by strikes for the last three weeks. Settlement of the Ocean Beach dispute was announced late last night in a joint statement from the union and management, after another meeting under the chairmanship of an Industrial Conciliator (Mr W. R. Grills). The statement gave' no details of the settlement, but said the dispute had been "satisfactorily and amicably resolved between the parties under the chairmanship of Mr Grills. “The mutual good will demonstrated during proceedings, will, it is confidently expected, lay the foundation for greatlyimproved relationships at Ocean Beach.” Stock would be brought in without delay to enable normal production to proceed on Monday, the statement said. The president of the Makarewa sub-branch of the Meat Workers’ Union (Mr D. W. Eastlake) said that the company had

made a proposal that union officials were prepared to take back to the slaughtermen today. “Of course, we hope that the men will accept it, but it ultimately rests with them,” he said. The proposal was described by Mr Eastlake as a “holding situation” on the make-up rate for hygiene gaps on processingchains. Negotiations on other aspects of a decision brought down by Mr Grills last month will continue when work resumes, which it is hoped will be on Monday. The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) told a press conference that the Minister of Labour (Mr Gordon) and the Government member for Awarua, Mr W. R. Austin, had reported to the Government caucus yesterday on discussions held in Invercargill on Wednesday with the Meat Workers’ Union, Federated Farmers, and freezing company management representatives.

Mr Muldoon said there was “some considerable possibility” that the two works would begin killing. Mr Gordon said that the talks in Invercargill had

teen "excellent” and had taken place in a spirit of good will. However, he said, Southland Federated Farmers had not seen fit to change its mind about calling for the deregistration of the Ocean Beach sub-branch of the Meat Workers’ Union. The national president of Federated Farmers (Mr A. F. Wright) had “a slightly different view,” said Mr Gordon. But, he said, deregistration had still not been ruled out. Mr Muldoon said Mr Gordon’s visit had been valuable in enabling the Minister to understand the feeling of the parties to the disputes and in allowing them to talk to him personally. On possible deregistration of the Ocean Beach union sub-branch, Mr Muldoon said the caucus had agreed that such a move would not be appropriate at a time when talks were continuing. However, “If the Government later, as a result of continuing disputes, was of a mind to deregister part of the Meat Workers’ Union, the caucus would unanimously support such action,” Mr Muldoon said.