Meat strike ends: pay offer accepted

Press, 4 March 1982, Page 1

Meat strike ends: pay offer accepted

Killing will resume in some meat works today but the settlement of the Gear Meat redundancy dispute yesterday came too late for many works to resume killing until tomorrow.

The operations manager for Waitaki N.Z. Refrigerating, Ltd, Mr M. Willyams, said that killing would resume at the Smithfield works at Timaru today but that work at the Islington works would not be able to start until tomorrow.

Work at the N.C.F. Kaiapoi works will also resume tomorrow.

The divisional processing manager of the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company, Mr Dick Allan, said that killing at the company’s two Belfast works and works at Fairton and Pareora would start today.

The settlement reached yesterday, with the help of an industrial mediator, Mr T. E. Skinner, provides for three weeks pay for the first year of service (a total of $900) and one week’s pay for each subsequent year ($3OO a year). The company dropped its insistence on a 20-year maximum for redundancy pay. The union had sought four weeks pay for the. first year and 1.5 weeks pay for each

subsequent year. The highest paid worker made redundant last year will get $16,500 for 52 years of service. The settlement came as a surprise to those not directly involved in the negotiations. If the dispute, which resulted in a nine-day strike in most export works south,of Auckland,' had not been settled yesterday, it might have dragged on for several weeks.

However, the Meat Workers’ Union would probably have gone along with an Auckland Freezing. Workers’ Union recommendation that the strikes be called off everywhere except at the Whakatu and Takapau works, which are owned by the Hawke’s Bay Farmers’ Meat Company, which also owned the Gear Meat works at Petone which was closed in November.

The secretary of the Meat Workers’ Union, Mr A. J. Kennedy, said that the terms of the settlement had disappointed some delegates at the union’s annual confer-

ence. The union had taken all factors into account when it had accepted the new offer made by the company. The Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) welcomed the end of the strike and said that he hoped those involved felt it had been worth while, reports the Press Association. “I hope that they think it is worth it; They lost a very large sum in wages and the farmers have lost a very large amount of money, which will affect the farming industry not just this year but next year and beyond,” he said.

“I think the country has probably lost in the economy a very large amount and I just hope they think it is worth .it.” Mr Muldoon said that the effects of the strike, combined with the drought, facial eczema, the delay in getting stock killed, and other factors have made those involved with the meat trade “very apprehensive. It clearly will have an effect both on lambing percentages and on the next season.”