Southland farmer sues meat firm to get stock killed

Press, 7 December 1978, Page 12

Southland farmer sues meat firm to get stock killed

PA Dunedin Bv refusing to kill stock for ‘a Te Anau farmer, the Southland Frozen Meat Company had committed a breach of its statutory duty under the Meat Act, a Southland lawyer said in the Supreme Court at Dunedin this week. Mr G. S. Noble was making submissions to Mr Justice White on behalf of Owen Buckingham, who is seeking an injunction to restrain the defendant company from breaching its duty. Decision was reserved.

Mr Buckingham, a leader of a farmers’ group which protested about the actions of freezing workers earlier this year, wants the Makarewa freezing works, near Invercargill, to receive his stock for slaughter as he says it is obliged to do under the act.

Alternatively, Mr Buckingham wants a writ of mandamus to compel the company to kill his stock when it is ready for slaughter. Mr R. P. H. Hewat appeared for the defendant company.

In his submissions, Mr Noble said Mr Buckingham had been sending stock to Makarewa for the last eight years and had

had more than 5000 sheep killed by the works during that time.

As a result of publicly criticising the actions of the Meat Workers’ Union during industrial trouble in Southland earlier this year, the union had imposed a lifetime ban on the killing of Mr Buckingham’s export stock. Mr Buckingham’s stock agent, a Mr Percy, was instructed by the plaintiff to await the result of a meeting between the Meat Workers’ Union and Federated Farmers at which the ban on the killing of tje plaintiff’s stock was being discussed, but in expectation of the ban’s being lifted, the agent was instructed to book 37 ewes at the Makarewa works for killing on November 20. Space was allocated by the defendant company, but this allocation was later withdrawn pending the outcome of the meeting. The ban was not lifted. Mr Buckingham was not prepared to wait any longer to have his stock killed, so he instructed Mr Percy to re-book the stock for November 20. On November 18 the defendant told the plaintiff that while it would accept his stock for slaughter it would not put

it up for killing until i award negotiations had been completed between j the Meat Workers’ Union I and the employers.

The union had apparently decided that lifting of the ban on the plaintiff's stock would not be considered until negotiations were completed, Mr Noble said.

The defendant company claimed it did not wish to jeopardise industrial relations by instructing its employees to slaughter the stock while the ban existed, and it told the plaintiff it considered little could be gained by forcing a confrontation with the union.

The plaintiff told the defendant its offer to i accept his stock for I slaughter with no assur- j ance of killing was unac- ; ceptable because no assur- I ance could be given when the ban would be lifted, if i at all, and when the stock | would in fact be slaugh- j tered.

Mr Buckingham was not prepared to put his stock | into the works to be held | there indefinitely when there was no guarantee ; the union would lift its I ban. Mr Noble said. He said the line of 37 ewes ' was in good condition and j intended for export.