Strikers seek a reinstatement

Press, 11 February 1981, Page 6

Strikers seek a reinstatement

j Fifteen drivers of RefrigI erated Freight Lines have ! been on strike since Monday after the dismissal of a:fellow worker who refused to lift a pig carcase. The secretary of • the Canterbury Drivers’ Union, Mr P. R. Liggett, said the drivers would strike until 10 a.m. today, when a meeting of union and employer representatives 1 ’Would be held before an independent chairman. ? ' ■ .• , Mr Liggett'said the driver was dismissed after he refused to / lift .a carcase that he judged to be too heavy to lift ’safely. The carcase weight 73kg (1611 b The drivers did not usual!}' lift weights of more than 30kg (66 lb).

The union believed it was a case of victimisation, Mr Liggett said. Nobody else had been asked to lift the carcase after the man had refused to. Yet there had been cases in the past where drivers had refused to lift weights that might have been injurious, and they had not been dismissed. Mr Liggett alleged the man had been victimised because he was vice-president of the union. The union demanded reinstatement of the driver, “and we believe we have every! justification for that.” It was normal practice that a worker could refuse to lift some-, thing that was beyond his capacity.