Stoppages cost $22M

Press, 3 December 1982, Page 4

Stoppages cost $22M

Industrial reporter Workers lost more wages through industrial stoppages in the first nine months of this year than in any full year previously, according to statistics released by the Statistics Department. The amount lost was $22 million, double the amount lost in the same period last year. However, most of the $22 million lost came from the pockets of New Zealand’s 30,000 freezing workers when they went on strike for two weeks in January and February in support of redundancy payments for gear meat workers at Petone. Industry sources put the amount lost by freezing workers at $lB

million after the strike ended. The most lost in wages in any one year previously was $17.7 million, in 1980. It is thought that the twoweek strike by meat workers has had a strong influence on all the indicators of industrial relations produced by the Statistics Department. The strike will make what was otherwise a year of fairly moderate activity into a year of high levels of industrial stoppages. It would be misleading to compare the figures for this year only with those of 1981, because last year had the fewest stoppages since 1972, the fewest workers affected

since 1975, and less pay lost than in 1980 in spite of wage inflation. In the first nine months of 'this year, 1109 working days were" lost through stoppages, resulting in 109,380 workers losing 288,246 working days. The days lost through stoppages averaged 2.64 a worker. If this trend were to continue it is thought that the total number of stoppages will be more than in the last two years, but not as high as in 1977 and 1979. The number of workers taking part in stoppages is expected to be about the same as last year, but less than other years since 1975.