All butchers’ shops in Christchurch to be closed today

Press, 8 June 1979, Page 3

All butchers’ shops in Christchurch to be closed today

All butchers’ shops in Christchurch will be closed today but will open again on Monday.

The Meat Retailers’ Association decided that owner-run butchers’ shops would be closed today, after a meeting last evening, but will make no further move until the results of conciliation talks are known on Monday, according to the association’s secretary (Mr K. T. Sugden).

Three Christchurch employers yesterday signed an agreement with the Shop Assistants’ Union, agreeing to pay striking butchers the wage "increases they seek. Other local employers are considering signing, according to the secretary of the Shop Assistants’ Union Mr B. Alderdice). Mr Alderdice said yesterday that so far 29 employers in Wellington and 12 in Auckland had signed the agreement, saying that they would pay the 10 per cent wage increase demanded by the butchers, plus a $l5 a week meat-industry allowance.

The employers’ union, the

Meat Retailers’ Association, has offered a pay increase of 9.8 per cent but has not agreed to the principle of the meat-industry allowance, Mr Alderdice said. About 400 Christchurch butchers and meat packers attended a meeting at the Trade Union Centre at 8 a.m. yesterday and resolved to stop work for the rest of the week. They would return to work on Monday, when their award negotiations would resume in Wellington, Mr Alderdice said, but if the dispute was not settled then, they would stop for the rest of the week. Butchers in Westland and at Timaru would await the outcome of Monday’s talks before they decided whether to strike next week.

The union yesterday checked owner-run butchers’ shops in Christchurch, after the union meeting resolved that they should close. Mr Alderdice said there were two reasons for this: it was unfair that some employers should gain at others’ expense, and the public had bought “so fiercely” on Wednesday that most avail-

able meat had been sold. A few butchers had remained open in spite of this, said Mr Alderdice, and were warned that there might be “some reaction” against them for doing so. A report in “The Press” yesterday that no stock was being killed at the Christchurch abattoir was incorrect. The abattoir has not stopped killing because of the strike.