Division over award for stablehands

Press, 1 September 1982, Page 28

Division over award for stablehands

PA Hamilton Union representatives and employers are divided over the formation of’an award for racing stablehands, a meeting of about 100 stablehpnds, trainers and owners in Cambridge heard on Monday evening.

At the meeting representatives of the Labourers’ and Workers’ unions urged stablehands to either join a trade union or form their own.

However, representatives of trainers’ and owners’ organisations said they were against compulsory unionism and preferred the stablehands to join the Farm Workers’ Association.

A free-lance journalist, Paul Moroney, of Matamata, who organised the meeting, said the Farm Workers' Association did not want the stablehands. The Labourers’ Union secretary, Charlie Clayton, and Geoff Watts, the Auckland branch secretary of the Workers’ Union, said the Farm Workers’ Association had foundered because membership is not compulsory. The Trainers’ Association representative, Alan Jones, said employers had held eight meetings in the last two years in an attempt to form an organisation of stablehands and form an award. A cadet scheme was to be set up and stablehands would be paid on the number of years experience, he said.

The employers have,’applied to have the stud and

stable workers recognised as a separate group under the Agricultural Workers’ Act, said Steve Brem who is national secretary of the N.Z. Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association.

However, Mr Clayton told the meeting that the employer could, not negotiate an agreement without a representation from the stablehands.

Everyone at the meeting agreed that if an award was negotiated there would be fewer people employed in the racing industry. New Zealand’s leading, trainer, Graeme Rogerson, said only half the trainers could afford to pay a proper wage. For many years stablehands in England and Australia have been represented by their own unions which on several occasions have forced race meetings to be cancelled through industrial stoppages. .