N.I. works agrees to 4-day week discussions

Press, 20 October 1981, Page 1

N.I. works agrees to 4-day week discussions

Industrial reporter

The concept of a four-day week for five days pay will be discussed at the Longburn freezing works, at Palmerston North, later this week.

Mr Bill Gordon, general manager of Borthwicks-CWS, which owns the Longburn works, said last evening that the company would go into talks with an open mind.

“We are after better use of capital facilities and, we hope, lower killing charges,” he said. •

Borthwicks plans to introduce pelting machines on its three existing killing chains and on a new chain, thereby reducing the need for half the 370 mutton slaughtermen and assistants employed last year.

It wants to have the machines in use this season.

But unless it gets union agreement the machines will not have any operators, and the Meat Workers’ Union has steadfastly refused to countenance any reduction in the total number of workers employed. A meat industry consultative committee under the chairmanship of a conciliator, Mr Len Fortune, of Christchurch, has been examining the issue of new technology since August, and will probably still be discussing it into the New Year. Mr Gordon denied that any agreement at the works level would undercut the work of the committee. The committee was working on the premise that there had to be increased technology in the meat export industry, increased productivity, safeguards for existing employees, and the industry had to remain competitive in the world market place, he said.

In the end the essence of any agreement was com-

promise. Without it there was no hope. The union had its stance, and the company had , certain . requirements which, had to be met.

The pelting machines are part of a $3 million programme at Longburn. Two of the machines will work on each chain, skinning the lamb or ewe carcasses. Mr Gordon said that if the four-day week scheme proposed by the West Coast (North Island) branch of the Meat Workers’ Union took effect it would mean that productivity would increase by 50 per cent.

The key issue in the talks will probably be the hours of work. The union is demanding five days pay for four days work, but Mr Gordon said that the concept was for four working days to achieve the production of a normal working week.

, “In essence we are offering the same working hours a week for a potential increase in productivity of 50 per cent,” said Mr Gordon.

The national secretary of the Meat Workers’ Union, Mr A. J. Kennedy, said that the four-day week concept was not being pushed in award talks which resumed in Christchurch yesterday and would continue today. The employers have offered a 9.5 per cent wage increase, while the unions are still insisting on 12 per cent.

Mr Kennedy said that the four-day. week was part of union policy and should be implemented where appropriate. It could be a precedent if Longburn agreed,

but it all depended on the particular circumstances at a works. The hours of work at Longburn had not been spelled, out, but there would be four days work for five days pay. For contract workers there would have to be a readjustment of rates.

The industrial relations manager for Waitaki NZ Refrigerating, Ltd, Mr Max Willyams, declined to comment on the Longburn concept. Waitaki, with nine works, is the biggest company in its field in New Zealand. The executive director of the Freezing Companies’ Association, Mr P. D. Blomfield, said from Wellington last evening that the idea of a four-day week for five days pay would be of no benefit to New Zealand.

However, Mr Blomfield was commenting not on the Longburn proposals, but on a booklet produced by the West Coast (North Island) branch of the Meat Workers’ Union. (Report, page 2.) There were better ways to introduce new technology than by a four-day week, Mr Blomfield said. Industries in other countries had successfully used the natural wastage of staff method, where those workers who left or retired were not replaced. “Freezing companies accept that they have, a responsibility to those employees who come back year after year,” he said. “If they are displaced by machines, then the industry has a responsibility to find them a job, and that is what we intend to do.”