Kinleith men dig in as Govt proceeds to axe pay accord

Press, 27 February 1980, Page 1

Kinleith men dig in as Govt proceeds to axe pay accord

PA Wellington Striking pulp and paper workers at the Kinleith mill dug in yesterday for a long confrontation with the Government.

Other unions pledged support and employers expressed reservations about the Government’s intervention to reduce an agreed wage increase. N.Z. Forest Products estimates that the long-si-lent mill is costing the company $500,000 a day. The dispute is now past its fiftieth day and an Auckland businessman has forecast “absolute disaster” in April when businesses run out of paper for computers, invoices, and stationery. In Wellington, law draughtsmen and Labour Department officials worked yesterday on the regulations to be brought down under the Remuneration Act to reduce the wage increase from 20.5 per cent to 18 per cent. The latest word was that the regulations would be gazetted “shortly” (not expected before today), inspite of a statement by the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) on Monday that the Executive Council would pass them yesterday. The president of the Auckland Trades Council (Mr G. H- Andersen) said that the Government had set the stage. for “very widespread action against it” and the president of the Federation of Labour (Mr W. J. Knox) indicated that the F.O.L. might withdraw its co-operation with the Government. This is the second time that the Government has moved to invoke the Remuneration Act to reduce a settlement agreed to between employers and workers. The first time was last September when intervention in the General Road Drivers’ Award resulted in New Zealand’s first general strike since the 19305. The strike was only partly successful. The agreement hammered out at a nine-hour meeting on Sunday would have given the Kinleith workers a basic rate of $4.82 an hour, or $193 for; a 40-hour week. Mr Muldoon said the regulations would bring this down to “about the level of $4.69 an hour,” or $lBB a week. The increase agreed with N.Z. Forest Products would have given the Kinleith workers parity with those at the Tasman Pulp and Paper mill at Kawerau. Mr Muldoon said the $4.69 represented the Auckland core rate plus 5 per cent to cover extra production. More than 500 workers have been on strike at Kinleith since the dispute started, with another 2000 suspended as the mill stopped and work ceased. Yesterday about 1000 of the workers turned out to an open-air rally in the logging town of Tokoroa, for the second day, to hear a report by their union officials and to vote ■ with a forest of upraised

arms to continue , the stoppage. The men spurned a call for a secret ballot and the vote was reported to have been near-unanimous. A pledge to support the workers came yesterday from the West Coast branch of the Meat Workers’ Union, which offered up to $20,000 a week# based on voluntary gifts of one hour’s pay. Pledges were said to be coming in from other unions, too, angry about the Government’s intervention in this dispute and also its action to stop boiler attendants from receiving registration payments. The executive director of the Employers’ Federation (Mr J. >W. Rowe) meanwhile called for urgent top-level discussions to solve wage-fixing and industrial problems. “In the meantime, I hope everyone will cool it, otherwise it could be too late,” he said. The federation was deeply concerned about the potentially explosive situation brought about by the Government’s intervention in the Kinleith agreement. “I hope common sense can prevail. In any eventual confrontation noone will emerge the winner, neither the industry, the unions, nor the country.' “The logical thing to do is to stop throwing bricks at one another and to sit down and look at the underlying problems of wage-fixing in the pulp-and-paper industry and in the country as a whole.” Mr ROwe did not specify the composition of the top-level conference he proposed but admitted that his organisation and the F.O.L. were “some distance apart.” The policy of the F.O.L, is that it will not take part in tripartite wage ■ talks which involve the Employers’ Federation. Mr Knox, due to meet his executive today and the F.O.L’s national council tomorrow, warned yesterday that the relationship between the F.O.L. and the Government would deteriorate quickly if threats continued about a return to wage-fixing. The question of a general strike had not been considered but where the Government had received advice and assistance from the F.O.L. in the past this might not be the case in the future. The Labour Party’s shadow Minister of Labour, Mr T. K. Burke said that Mr Muldoon was “deliberates and coldbloodedly scuttling” the pulp-and-paper industry for “purely personal political motives.” He called on the F.O.L. and the Employers’ Federation to make a joint approach £o the Cabinet in an effort to salvage “an exceedingly dangerous situation.”

Mr Muldoon said the Government had warned the F.O.L. last week L that it would intervene in the Kinleith dispute if agreement was not reached ‘‘promptly.” The Government’s wages policy was quite clear. "Unions and employers know that large wage settlements gained as a result of strike action are unacceptable,” said Mr Muldoon. The Government had been “more than patient.” over the dispute and had given the parties plenty of time to reach an acceptable compromise. The Government’s advice had gone unheeded and the strike had dragged on until after a new agreement had been reached at the Tasman mill. The $4.69 an hour repre-

sented an increase of 71.8 c an hour, or almost $29 for a 40-hour T’eek over what had been paid before the strike.

Last week, Mr J. Heynen, the managing director of Lockley Off-Set Printing, an Auckland printing company, saici New Zealand’s businesses would be Without paper for invoices, letterheads, envelopes, docket books, computers, statements, purchase orders, packing slips, and even bus tickets in two month... as a result of the dispute. This would happen even if the Kinleith dispute was solved immediately because the mill worked to a three-month production cycle, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. This meant it could not increase production to make up shortfalls.