Union rebels plan 'flood’ of telegrams

Press, 15 July 1978, Page 3

Union rebels plan 'flood’ of telegrams

rA Auckland Leaders of the rebel element m the Auckland Clerical Workers’ Union plan to the Minister of Labour (Mr Gordon) with telegrams to combat what they see as union blackmail. The organisers of the recent protest meeting in the Auckland Town Hall met again on Thursday evening' to plan counters to the tactics announced by the Federation of Labour and the transport unions to deal with voluntary unionism. i These include refusing to work with non-union labour, or to handle goods produced or supplied by non-union labour. The spokeswomen, Mrs Janet McLaren and Miss Helen Chambers, said that their supporters would tell Mr Gordon that they wanted to exercise “their democratic right to choose whether to belong to a union. "We will inform the Minister by individual telegram! from across the country, be- i fore the meeting of the F.O.L. and the Government and Labour caucuses next Wednesday, of our desire for a compulsory unionism bal | lot.” They hope that the Minis I ter will get 1000 telegrams; bv Tuesday night. “It is also hoped that,’ once and for all, the alleged, concern over fee increases.! as stated by the union, will, be demonstrated to be noth-' ing more than a smoke- ■ screen to draw attention! away from the groundswell; developing in favour of voluntary unionism,” they said. It is also reported that the 14,000-member Bank Officers’ Union say it cannot comply with the Govern# ment’s legislation on volun tary union ballots.

The union’s secretary (Mr D. Aimer) said in Auckland yesterday that the legislation was “oppressive and undermined the union’s interna! procedures.” The union, one of the biggest in New Zealand and covering all trading banks,; is due to be balloted within; the next few weeks. Mr Aimer, in a letter to I the Registrar of Industrial Unions, said that the problems of providing a list of names and addresses of all persons bound by the un- ’ qualified preference clause in the award were greater than expected. Employers are required to supplv the union with a list of those covered by the I clause in April every’ year. He told the registrar that because of the high turnover of staff in banking, the list was already out of date. Mr Aimer estimated that about 10 per cent of those on the list would have left I their jobs and no longer be eligible to vote. As well a “substantial” number of new employees, recruited since the list was obtained, could ’be eligible. Mr Aimer said that the list of present financial I members was very different from a list of names of | adult workers hound by the unqualified preference proviI sion. Many employees of managerial status who were not bound by the award rej tained their union membership voluntarily. He said that the list was also defective in that it did not include employees who had become eligible to vote since April, and had not joined the union. The union simply did not have the information to enable it to comply with the act, and the lists would omit the names of hundreds of workers entitled and not entitled to vote. Mr Aimer has suggested to the registrar that he delay the ballot until April when the banks supply a new list, or. that ‘he union conduct its own ballot among financial members — this was possible before the new award came into force in March.