Various reasons for meat industry harmony

Press, 1 September 1980, Page 30

Various reasons for meat industry harmony

By

GLENN HASZARD

Industrial relations in the meat export industry in New Zealand have shown encouraging signs of improving, resulting in fewer industrial stoppages.

The main indication is the number of working days lost. As the graph shows, there has been. a steady slide in working days lost in the industry from 227,296 days in 1976 to 141,122 in 1979. I have included statistics for the October, 1979, to March, 1980, season too, to show that the trend appears to be' continuing. In that season 108,721 working days were lost; This lis significant, because the industry contributes about 12 per cent of New- Zealand’s gross national product and 40 per cent of its produce export earnings. Looking at the industry in another way, the graph on stoppages shows peaks in 1977 and 1979, but that the latest season was comparatively stoppagefree.

In 1976, a particularly bad year for industrial stoppages in all industry, the meat export industry had 46 per cent of the 'share of working v days lost. ■ The percentage dropped to 40 in 1977, rose again in 1978 to 45 per cent, and: last year dropped to 37 per cent of the New Zealand' total. , If the forthcoming round of wage talks in the meat industry can be concluded without disruption, the pattern of declining

conflict might continue. No simple explanation can be found for the trend. Mr Max Willyams, industrial relations manager for the big Waitaki N.Z. Refrigerating Company, Ltd, said that he beheyed last season was fairly normal. Changes in the national pattern of stoppages in the industry could be attributed to im« proved relations in some of the more stoppageprone works such as Ocean Beach, Longburn and Westfield. Mr Derek Morten, managing director of the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company, agreed. Southland works had been troubled in the last few seasons, but had a good season this time. Industry sources said that the October, 1979, to March, 1980, season was peculiar because it was more drawn out,, with fewer peak long days, especially in the more stoppage-prone Auckland area. Without the longer hours the workers may have received less pay. and may have therefore been disinclined to force issues through stoppagse. Their financial insecurity may have been more undermined by the realisation that their unemployment benefit would be taxed this year under a new provision introduced by the Government for seasonal workers. Also, there were some gnawing problems in. the 1976 to 1978 years which may have accounted for some of the stoppages. One of these was the action over the 8.5 per cent backpay arising from a 1973 decision. The companies took a hard line against , paying out to in- J centive workers, and the,. disgruntled . workers toqk industrial action to try to extract by-pressure what they thought was justifiably theirs. Another problem was that when the National Party came to power in 1975 it was determined to put into effect its election manifesto promise of penalty provisions. The introduction of the laws brought a reaction from the whole trade union movement; including the unions in the meat industry. The worst and most publicised of. these was the case of Ocean Beach? meat workers. This whole affair arose after the Freezing Companies’ Association refused to sanction a signed agreement be-, tween the Ocean Beach works ' management and the Ocean Beach subbranch of the union. The conflict over this led to a strike at the .works in 1978' and attempts to bring prosecutions against the meat workers involved. ;■ The , Government also ;had mounting inflation on its, hands . and tried to curb this by a restrictive wages policy. Unions had to resort to pressure on their employers' to try to keep wages on a par with inflation. One way the Government tried to hold down wages in the meat industry was to impose a ceiling of 7.5 per cent oh the increase, in killing charges .that the companies could impose. This

meant that the companies had to try to keep wages down below 7.5 per cent or they would face the prospect of losses. The secretary of the Meat Workers’ Union (Mr A. J. Kennedy) said many factors were behind the pattern of stoppages. The •employers could architect disputes for objectives such as overseas market prices. If there was a glut of meat in the United Kingdom the employers might not want a quick wage wanted the season to be delayed by strikes until the .glut was over and they could get better prices, he said. ; • Other factors which may have had a bearing on the level of stoppages include the effect of a contracting economy and the increased difficulty of getting off-season work, changes in the leadership of the?union; and changes: in the behaviour of the Government in labour relations and the use of penalty provisions. ’Mr :J.~ H. K. KerrInkson, senior lecturer in management at the. University of Otago, is cautious about reading too much into the statistics. He has studied the industry for several years and published research papers on it. Although the 1979-1980 figures did seem to represent a continued decline, it was too early to say whether this was part of a long-term.

change or just _ a temw porary anachronism; he ■ said. - ‘ M i It must be borne m mind that levels of indust l rial stoppages was just one indicator of conflict, “A good deal more time is lost by . individual ■rather than collective I forms of conflict, for. ei» I ample absenteeism and a& I cidents. Statistics itf these areas are difficult to obtain, but might well! show that the -levels of conflict and ‘ lost time have not declined, but have merely moved from I collective to individual forms/’ Mr Ketr-InksotJ said. ■ ? ' <£?

“Another problem is that if overt conflict declines it does not necessarily ' mean that . all ?arties feel good' about have met people in the industry, "particularly ’sus pervisors and delegates, who believe , that in recent years peace has been sq* cured by ‘selling . ont’ itO the other side. In the-long term, the resentment of these people may cost th? industry more titan : stoppages would, have 'done.” Mr Kerr-Inkson believed that the quality of management in the industry was improving, with more people of talent involved, more professional development of the. personnel and industrial relations function, and an increasing recognition that some traditional management prerogatives could not bg maintained forever.