Butchers to strike this week

Press, 19 June 1979, Page 3

Butchers to strike this week

Auckland butchers who began a week-long strike on Monday will be joined for three days tomorrow morning by their colleagues throughout New Zealand.

Most butchers’ shops in Christchurch will be closed tomorow, Thursday, and Friday, according to' the local secretary of the Shop Employees’ Union (Mr B. Alderdice). Those in New Brighton will close on Thursday, Friday. and Saturday. The strike results from another breakdown in national pay talks. Most employers have refused to meet union claims for a 10 per cent wage rise and a weekly $l5 industry allowance. During last week’s strike of Christchurch butchers, several shops run by selfemployed butchers stayed open, in spite of a request by the union that they close. Most of these subsequently were black-listed by the Meat Workers’ Union at the request of the Shop Employees’ Union.

Mr Alderdice said he did not know whether the same action would follow if the owners opened their shops during this week’s strike.

“This time it is a national strike, and I have not had instruction from the national office,” he said.

However, the union’s advocate (Mr R. J. Campbell) said on Friday that the union would not seek to close own-er-run shops during a butchers’ strike. Fifteen Christchurch employers had now accepted the

union’s demands, said Mr Alderdice. but none of the big chains were included. Those that had accepted would be permitted to open during the strike.

In Wellington and Auckland. about 50 employers will be similarly free of strike action, the Press Association reports. One of the 25 Auckland firms includes a chain which sells meat from a supermarket firm. Mr Campbell said yesterday that discussions held with some big employers in the meat retail industry during the week-end had pointed to a possibility of a settlement of the dispute. But, he said, there was difficulty in aranging and early meeting with the Employers’ Faderation.

The employers’ advocate (Mr G. Perfect) said the employers were willing to talk, but would not do so while a strike was in progress. The Auckland action began when 600 butchers met yesterday morning and decided Ito stop work, and to ban all sales of meat, immediately. A spokesman for the Northern Butchers’ Union said the only shops exempt from the strike would be those which agreed in writing to meet the union’s claims, and owner-run shops which normally did not employ union labour.

Any other firms attempting to sell meat during the strike would have their supplies cut off by a freezing workers’ load-out ban, the spokesman said.