Suspension for 100 workers

Press, 29 June 1982, Page 3

Suspension for 100 workers

PA Auckland A dispute at the Nathan Distribution Centre at Wiri, which has led to the suspension of about 100 stores workers, could begin to hit other groups of employees at the site today. Talks yesterday between the company and officials of the Northern Storepersons, and Packer’s Union failed to resolve the issue.

A spokesman said after the meetings that the company expected to have run out of work for clerical staff and drivers employed at the centre by this afternoon. The stores employees were suspended late last week. They refused to lift a number of load-out bans they had imposed after the company refused to pay them for a day-long stoppage about a week ago. The stoppage had taken place in protest over a safety matter. The workers, who remain suspended, will meet

again tomorrow morning. Two disputes which have hit the Auckland car assembly industry over the last two weeks, were settled yesterday.

About 300 engineers at the Wjri plant of Nissan Datsun returned to work after striking for a week over what they claimed was the unjustified dismissal of a colleague. A company spokesman said the worker was not reinstated, and after a meeting yesterday, the engineers returned to normal work. At the Ford Motor Company plant at Wiri, 350 engineers returned to work after accepting a seven-point settlement proposal that had been rejected last week. Their claim for payment for a stoppage after Labour Department inspectors had issued a safety certificate in the body shop, will now be aired before an independent chairman. All workers who were suspended, or dismissed were reinstated.