Gear staff ponder jobless future

Press, 20 November 1981, Page 6

Gear staff ponder jobless future

PA Wellington Fewer than 250 of the more than 600 meat workers thrown out of work by this week’s announcement of the closing of the Gear works at Petone attended / yesterday morning’s shed meeting. This was the first chance the workers, some of whom were accompanied by wives and children, had to question their leaders. All top Meat Workers’ Union officials were present, including the general secretary, Mr A. J. Kennedy, the branch secretary, Mr Ken Findlay, and local shed officials. Most of the workers outside the meeting declined to speak to reporters but a few were openly critical of the union. Mr Wayne Potter, a stock hand at Gear for. seven years, blamed the union for the closing. “I don’t know what I am going to do. I live in Wainuiomata and there is no show of a job there,” he said. But Mr Kennedy emerged from the meeting to say that

all workers were solidly behind their unions. They rejected allegations by the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) that union officials were to blame for the works’ closing. The workers were confident that what had been done and what would be done (by the union) was in their interests, Mr Kennedy said. The union would continue efforts to get the works reopened.