Womble' angers

Press, 1 May 1981, Page 4

Womble' angers

Meat workers, at the Pukeuri works of Waitaki N.Z. Refrigerating, Ltd. near Damaru, found themselves without work for half a day in Wednesday .when the comoany withdrew stock from ihe chains after foremen :ook offence at slaughtermen rhanting “womble, womble, womble.”

“It is the silliest dispute I have heard of,” said the national secretary of the Meat Workers’ Union, Mr A. J. Kennedy, in Christchurch last evening. “If the foremen had -ignored it. that would have been the end of it. The company has.made a fool of itself,” he said. Mr Kennedy said that the foremen had given an ultimatum to the slaughtermen to desist from saying “womble, womble, womble.” When i they persisted the company i stopped putting stock up for

slaughter. However, the works manager, Mr A. D. Murdoch, said that the • supervisors were experienced men, and namecalling alone would not affect them.

“But it was not just verbal harassment. The situation was such that it was impossible for the supervisors to do their job properly and normal hygiene procedures (inspection by meat inspectors), could not be carried out.” . “The circumstances were such that I would not expect . my supervisors to work under them, and I wouldn’t work under them myself,” said Mr Murdoch. He said that meat trimmings and fat were thrown around and water sprayed onto overhead equipment, resulting in ojly water dropping on to carcasses. Similar incidents had oc-

curred over the last three weeks, but they had been in the late afternoon and ■ the workers had just gone home a little early. On Wednesday, the incidents occurred in the morning and the management had had no alternative but to withhold stock. The incidents could not be attributed to end-of-season high spirits, because there were still at least four weeks of full capacity killing and seven or eight weeks of winding down after that.

Mr Kennedy said that he had not heard about trimmings and fat being thrown or water sprayed until “The Press” told him of Mr Murdoch's comments last evening.

He had had a full report from the Pukeuri branch secretary and these matters had not been mentioned.

"I would be very surprised if that was the case,” he said.