Shift row: plant to close?

Press, 24 April 1980, Page 1

Shift row: plant to close?

The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company at Papanui will probably stop production from Sunday night in a dispute between rubber workers and the company over a house agreement.

The company warned rubber workers at its plant yesterday that . if they, altered their working hours today the company would not make work available from Sunday night, deeming the workers to be on strike and in breach of their award. But the union decided yesterday to pursue its . shorter working week campaign today, when the shift that usually ends . work at 11.30 p.m. will ; finish at 5.30 p.m. “We cannot carry on in the situation where they are on-again, off-again,” { said the company’s works manager (Mr V. W. West). : The rubber workers changed their hours of 1 work last Friday and tried j to alter them the Friday » previous, in a campaign for a shorter working I week. . I Mr West has said that he does not dispute the fact that some workers • might increase their productivity on a shorter I working week, but the company as a whole would lose eight hours > production a week because; ; the curing plant was run ? on a 24-hour, five-day- I a-week basis. | Should the rubber work- . ers ignore the company’s : warning, the company < would have no alternative i but to carry out its ul- 1 timatum . and not Offer ’ work from Sunday night. • “It is a serious situation ! because the country is in , bad shape,” Mr West said; } A stoppage at the plant i would affect the wellbeing of the. company, jeopardise exports, and threaten job opportunities. The secretary of the Canterbury Rubber Workers’ Union (Mr ■L. G. Morel) said that the work- ’ ers were prepared to drop their claim for a shorter ■ working week-if the company was prepared to enter “meaningful negotiations” on two other claims for the house agreement, which is a document that supplements the district agreement applicable to all rubber workers. The two claims were that the “time in motion” service leave of one week be given to workers after seven years service .instead of the present 10 years; and that shift allowances be accrued and credited to workers in the form of annual leave. Mr Morel said that most workers would work a 40hour week, but some would finish work today at 5.30 p.m. instead of 11,30 p.m.