‘Back strikers’ call to unionists

Press, 28 February 1980, Page 1

‘Back strikers’ call to unionists

PA Wellington Members of trade unions throughout New Zealand will be asked to give one hour’s pay a week to a fund that will help Kinleith workers to stay on strike as a rebuff to the Government’s intervention in their pay settlement. The president of the Federation of Labour (Mr W. J. Knox) said last evening that the F.O.L. would support the. 2500 striking or suspended Kinleith staff for as long as they wanted to continue the strike, now in its eighth week. Almost 300 unions, with a membership totalling 420,000, are affiliated to the F.0.L., and, if the hour’s pay suggestion met a generous response of an average of $3.50 to $4, the fighting fund could swell

to more than $1.5 million. The aim would be not only to boost the finances and morale of the Kinleith workers but would provide funds to help people once the trouble at the giant N.Z. Forest Products plant was settled, according to Mr Knox.

Trade union money and gifts of food were “pouring” into union welfare centres in Tokorca, Putaruru, and Rotorua, he said. F.O.L. support would continue until the dispute — costing $500,000 a day — reached a satisfactory conclusion, he said.

Mr Knox would not elaborate on what he considered satisfactory. “There could be moves being made right now,” he said. “Though the ball is In the employers' court, and the Government’s court, the executive is available at all times for consultation if they decide to settle this serious dispute.” Mr Knox said there would be no confrontation with the Government, but he did not rule out the possibility of industrial action outside Kinleith at some stage.

Mr Knox said that he was “holding back” workers at the Tasman pulp and paper mill at Kawerau and that other trade unions were also pressing for action. Like him, they had had “a gutsful” of a Government which had dropped relations with the tradeunion movement to their lowest ever level, he said. Referring to a statement ment by the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) that the advocate for the Kinleith combined unions, Mr Ji Butterworth, was a former member of the

Socialist Unity Party and a self-confessed Marxist and Communist, Mr Knox said Mr Muldoon had resort to character assassination. He had known Mr Butterworth for a long time, and he was not ?, member of the S.U.P. or any political party. As long as he carried out his responsibilities to his members as a union official, and carried out F.O.L. policy, Mr Butterworth’s politics were no concern of his, Mr Knox said. Mr Butterworth last even-

ing denied tha.t he was or had been a member of the Socialist Unity Party. “In 1966, I made a small financial donation to the S.U.P. and it sent me a membership card, which I did not take up,” he said. “I have never regarded myself as a member. “I do not want this to be taken as any criticism of people who are in the S.U.P., because I refuse to have anything to do with ‘Red baiting.’ “As for being a Marxist, yes, I readily say that I have studied the Marxist

economic philosophy and I have also studied Keynesian economic philosophy, and the logic of Marxism appeals to me in preference to our present system.” Asked if he was a Communist, Mr Butterworth replied: “There are a variety of such parties in existence in New Zealand and the world, each professing to have the correct interpretation of Marxist philosophy, and I do not know who is correct. On that basis I do not belong to any political party. “I regard all the statements by Mr Muldoon about me as a diversify from a straight industrial argument about wage rates.” Mr Muldoon’s views, Page 2.