Beef row threat to season’s meat award talks

Press, 1 November 1979, Page 1

Beef row threat to season’s meat award talks

Conciliation talks for the meat workers’ award could he jeopardised today by a dispute at the Alliance works in Southland.

Assessors for the meat workers and the freezing companies will wait to hear whether beefhouse workers at the Alliance works have returned to work before thev resume conciliation talks in Christchurch this morning. The executive director of the Freezing Comnanies’ Association (Mr P. D. Blomfield' said last evening that the Southland workers could seriously nrejud’ce the outcome of ♦he talks if thev did not return to ■work todav.

However, the national secretary of the Meat Workers’ Union (Mr A J. Kennedy) said that he had had no indication that the workers would return to work.

Only two Alliance beefhouse workers reported for work on Tuesday. The others were protesting

against the non-payment of an 8.5 per cent backpay on a cost-of-living pavment dating from 1973. Thirty cattle which were to have been killed to start the 1979-80 season, were not slaughtered, and the two men were sent home. The dispute has been to several judicial courts, committees of inquirv. compulsorv conferences, and arbitration. It was thought to have been resolved by a decision of Professor J. L. Mathieson last year, but some Southland workers are not accenting his decision. ‘•We do not accent that the emnlovers can hold off national award talks with a local dispute,” said Mr Kerned”. Mr Blomfield said that the Alliance dispute was not a local issue.

“I would regard the Alliance beefhouse issue as a national issue. I would hope that the union in Southland will be back to normal work, otherwise it could seriously prejudice the outcome of the conciliation talks,” Mr Blomfield said. Mr Blomfield said that those workers who were entitled to the back pay had received it; those who were not entitled to it had not received it. The employers maintained that the Alliance workers were not entitled to the payment.

Mr Kennedy said he did not know what was likely to happen this morning.

“Unless the issue was resolved, the employers said they would not be meeting us,” he said. The Otago-Southland

branch of the Meat Workers’ Union has already advised Alliance beefhouse workers to keep their offseason jobs until further notice. ,

The lamb export killing season has just begun. With plentiful supplies of feed in Canterbury, at least, there is no real pressure to have stock killed, and this is apparently fairly general. Exporters are paying a premium on light lambs to encourage them into the works.

But pressure is bound to build up this month and unless a lot of lambs are handled before Christmas there are likely to be delays in getting stock killed early in the New Year because of numbers being too great for the killing facilities.