Worried staff quit at Aulsebrooks

Press, 19 August 1978, Page 6

Worried staff quit at Aulsebrooks

Industrial reporter Workers at the Aulsebrooks Christchurch factory are pessimistic about their future. Some have already found other jobs; others are looking for them.

According to one girl who works in the packing department, the workers “have had their hopes raised and dashed so many times that a good many of them are living and working under a great deal more strain and tension than is necessary.” They say the Canterbury Trades Council is doine good work on their behu.f, but they are not at ail confident that it will keep them their jobs. According to unconfirmed reports, about 15 factory workers have left the plant in the last two weeks. Others say they will leave as soon as they get the chance. But if employees do leave before they are issued official redundancy notices, they are not entitled to severance pay-) ments. although some are apparently under the impression that they will get a week’s pay for each year they have worked for the firm The flurry of overtime activity’ at Aulsebrooks over the last few weeks

ended yesterday, and this has made some confectionery workers think that the end is near, although they have been told that their jobs are secure until October. / One worker, Jennie Chauval, wrote a letter to the editor of “The Press” alleging that the workers were being used by certain political parties for their own ends. She named the Socialist Action League, which distributed circulars to the workers this week calling for nationalisation of the factory. She said that if anybody really wanted to help, the best way they could do it would be to buy a packet of Aulsebrooks’ biscuits or sweets. “That is the only thing that will raise our marketing losses and pay our wages and ensure that we keep our jobs. “At present we are fighting for our jobs. But there is nothing, absolutely nothing, we can do, because the market has dropped to rock bottom on the particular products

that our company makes — it’s no-one’s fault; not the public’s, because they can no longer afford the amount of luxury items they used to buy,” said Miss Chauval. “We like the idea that people out there are ‘behind’ us helping, as it were. But think about it, will you? How can you help other than by buying the products that we make? This is indeed something we w’ould like to know. No matter what people say about us in sympathy, sympathy does not pay our wages, or buy our bread. We cannot live on sympathy',” she said. The president of the Canterbury Trades Council (Mr W. R. Cameron) said that the council’s executive would meet on Monday to decide when to meet again to discuss the proposed deal with the company. However, he would not hint at the identity of the council’s mystery prospective buyer of 72 per cent of A.B. Consolidated Holdings.