Ultimatum to workers

Press, 15 October 1982, Page 1

Ultimatum to workers

Two hundred freezing workers at the Islington works of Waitaki N.Z. Refrigerating, Ltd, have been warned that if they do not lift a go-slow by 5 p.m. today, there will be no work for them next week.

The dispute has built up since the company cancelled last year’s above-award incentive contracts and told the Meat Workers’ Union that it wanted fresh agreements. The works manager, Mr G. R. Stobie, said that the goslow, imposed this week, had drastically reduced the throughput. He issued suspension notices to 200 of the 260 meat workers on Wednesday, giving them until 5 p.m. today to assure the company that normal work would resume on Monday. The company had presented new above-award contracts based on a rate of $lO7 a day for' mutton slaughter-

men if they killed 10.100 sheep or lambs. A lot of the contracts were similar to those which had been cancelled, said Mr Stobie. If those issued with notices agreed to resume work which gave the company a “decent” day’s work for a decent day’s pay, the notices would be withdrawn and stock offered. Once normal work resumed, negotiations could continue on the incentive agreements, he said. At the Belfast beef works of the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company, Ltd. the management is also negotiating with the union about new incentive agreements and manning levels. The general manager of C.F.M., Mr John Drayton, said that with the downturn in beef numbers in the last three years, manning levels had to be reduced. That had been done with the co-opera-tion of the union.