Load-out ban pointless, say meat companies

Press, 13 August 1980, Page 1

Load-out ban pointless, say meat companies

The load-out ban to be imposed by New Zealand meat workers from 8 a.m. today was pointless, said the executive director of the Freezing Companies’ Association, Mr P. D. Blomfield, yesterday. The ban, announced yesterday afternoon by the national secretary of the Meat Workers’ Union (Mr A. J. Kennedy) is in support of Australian meat worker efforts to halt the export of live sheep to the Middle East allegedly by Thomas Borthwick and Sons, Ltd.

The president of the North Island Freezing Workers’ Union (Mr F. Barnard) said that his union would support any ban, reports the Press Association.

The ban is expected to have not much effect at this time of the year because it is the off-season, although the killing of bobby calves will be disrupted, and cold stores are filled with meat awaiting export. Mr Blomfield said he could see no point in the union’s “importing issues which have absolutely no relevance here.” There was nothing the association or Borthwick’s in New Zealand could do* to influence the Australian situation. New Zealand did not export live sheep to the Middle East and there was no suggestion that Borthwick’s in New Zealand was about to start live-sheep exports. The industrial manager of Borthwick’s C.W.S., Ltd (Mr J. Wilson) said the only common link between the company’s Australian and New Zealand operations was its international headquarters in London.

Mr Kennedy, said Australia had shipped six million live sheep this year to Kuwait resulting in a loss of jobs in the processing industry. “We want the industry here to put its full weight behind Borthvyick’s in Australia to stop that trade," he said.

The duration of the ban would depend on what happened in Australia. The ban would be lifted immediately when the union heard that prosecutions against Australian meat workers would not be proceeded with. r' ' The marketing manager of Borthwick’s in New Zealand, Mr B. Freeman, said Borthwick’s had become embroiled in an industrial dispute not because it had exported live sheep from Australia but because it had brought legal action against six trade unionists. •

“It just happens that Borthwick’s has a works at -Portland which is the port which other companies are using to export live sheep,” he said. Watersiders had been loading live sheep into a ship on Sunday when freezing workers had picketed the wharf. About 29 carriers transporting the sheep had driven through the picket lines and the Australian Meat Workers’ ‘Union had blacklisted the carriers.

As a result Borthwick’s at Portland had no carriers to take stock to its works for slaughter, and had sought relief under the Trade Practices Act.

This provides for a remedy where a boycott has an effect on an industry other than that which it is aimed at.