Ocean Beach walk-out

Press, 26 February 1981, Page 4

Ocean Beach walk-out

PA ;./■ Wellington it liters’ at - the Ocean Beach freezing works, at/: Bluff, walled off the job yesterday morning in protest ’against the arrests of.. picketers at Auckland, Airport on Tuesday. About 30 -men; ...left the plant at $.30, u-a.m., after a meeting to discuss'the arrests. They will return to work today reassess developments. The only dspute' in the Nelson area yesterday connected with the Auckland arrests appeared to be the walk-off by seamen, from the. bulk carrier Ngahere. The Union Company ship arrived from South Australia on Sunday. • r = j • ‘ ' . Thous ands 0f.,,, Waikato workers went \on . strike yesterday in" sympathy with the arrested Auckland picketers. .

The; Huntly .power site’s private sector workforce and maintenance workers at N.Z. Forest " Products’- ; .Kinleith plant'walked out on Tuesday morning. . 'Kinleith was reported to be virtually shut yesterday, with the, pulp and paper workers out. ' /•'Most of. • the., ? Kinleith workers are expected to returh at 8 a.m. today; when they may • reconsider their position. Huntly power site workers have gone home until Monday morning, according to a union spokesman. ' Waikato Breweries staff and ' many ' building tradesmen in the Waikato area have <;->■ stopped work. The Tasman Pulp and Paper mill and the Caxton Paper Mill at Kawerau ceased production on Tuesday morning after. .‘workers

walked off the job, and production at the Whakatane board mills alsj halted yesterday morning. The secretary of the Pulp and Paper Workers’ Federation,- Mr J. L. Murphy, said that the Tasman- and Caxton strike decisions were local ones, made' by the 4000 workers concerned.

A spokesman for Tasman Pulp a: d Paper said that the company had not been given any indication of when employees would return to work. He praised the manner in which the employees left their jobs, describing the mill closedown as “workmanlike.”

In other developments, Taupo firemen voted to attend emergencies only arid ignore: routine maintenance, but after a meeting Rotorua fireriien decided , to .continue, normal work.