Refinery dispute meetings today

Press, 4 October 1982, Page 6

Refinery dispute meetings today

PA Auckland The Minister of Labour. Mr Bolger, is expected to meet company and union officials today and tomorrowin a bid to 'settle industrial trouble threatening an eightwcek maintenance programme at the Marsden Point oil refinery. However, workers at the refinery intend to go ahead with a meeting of their own today which could isolate the dispute. A stop-work meeting will consider taking further action after the breakdown of negotiations with the NeuZealand Refining Company, in Auckland, on Friday. The refinery began shutting down last evening in preparation for its twovearlv overhaul. The flow of oil through the plant is expected to stop by this afternoon, and maintenance is planned to start immediately. Unions are refusing to negotiate a shutdown agreement until hourly pay rates for operators and tradesmen are settled.

To back their demands, the unions say they will not work the full sfFhour._ six-day weeks required for 'the duration of the programme, but instead only a normal. 40 hours. The company has warned that if maintenance is only partly completed, the refinery is likely to work at less than peak efficiency when the started. That could mean a higher proportion of refined fuels having to be imported until* the next shutdown. If the workers decide this morning to extend their action. the programme now already six months behind schedule, may not be able to start at all. The dispute follows a comparison of the pay rates of refinery operators with those of workers in other industries. A three-member committee was appointed to do the evulation. and pending its report, the operators were set an hourlv rate of $6.45. The committee has now reported and the parties are

supposed to complete the evaluation by establishing an internal relativity System between refinery operators and tradesmen. The boilermakers, engineers and stationary engine drivers unions have agreed on these relativities but the company says it has not been included' in this and will not start negotiations until .-the evaluation exercise is complete to its satisfaction. Last month, the union sought from Mr Bolger an exemption from the wage freeze to discuss the pay claims. Mr Bolger said yesterday he was not prepared to consider. the request until the second part of the evaluation had been completed. "To the best of my knowledge that hasn't been done." he said. Mr Bolger considered the pay and maintenance issues were "quite unrelated." “With the complexity of the operators' wage question it seems wrong for the unions to link the two," he said. "Let's get on with the maintenance and then see how we can sort the other out."