F.O.L. asks Gear to open

Press, 19 November 1981, Page 1

F.O.L. asks Gear to open

PA Wellington Union officials have asked the Gear Meat company to reopen the Petone freezing works. The president of the Federation of Labour, Mr W. J. Knox, sought the meeting last evening to ask the company to reconsider the closing. No official statements on the outcome of the two-hour meeting were immediately available. But it is believed that the F.O.L. presented a letter setting out its position and that the letter will be considered by the Gear Meat board, possibly later today. The Hawke's Bay Farmers’ Meat Company, owner of the Gear works, has said that Monday’s closing is final.

But Mr Knox said he had asked for yesterday’s meeting to call on the employers to allow the shed to remain open so that those workers who would get no redundancy pay would not have to suffer over the Christmas holiday. Mr Knox said that he had not considered asking for an inquiry similar to the Southdown closing — where the Auckland works was reopened temporarily — until he knew whether the Gear decision was definite. The national secretary of the Meat Workers’ Union, Mr A. J. Kennedy, and the West Coast branch secretary, Mr K. Findlay, both of whom met the F.O.L. executive on Tuesday, were also at the meeting.