Union wants man’s reinstatement

Press, 21 January 1983, Page 1

Union wants man’s reinstatement

PA Auckland The Northern Labourers’ Union said yesterday that it was pushing for the reinstatement of a scaffolder who was dismissed from the Marsden Point oil refinery expansion site on Wednesday. The union’s secretary, Mr L. T. Smith, said yesterday that the dismissal — u’hich has sparked a fresh outbreak of industrial unrest at the project — was wrong. Up to 600 workers, about half the site work-force, walked off the site yesterday in protest. Apart from a group of drivers who have

said they will strike indefinitely, most of the men will return on Monday. Their action, which has stopped all but some civil engineering work, is the first at the site since most men returned from their holiday break a week ago. A spokesman for the Badger-Chiyoda JV2 consortium, which is building the extensions, said the scaffolder was dismissed for “persistent absenteeism." The spokesman said the man had had three warnings about his poor attendance record. He said that if the union considered the dismis-

sal was unfair, it could contest the action through the personal grievance procedures provided in the site agreement. Mr Smith said he would neither confirm nor deny that the scaffolder had a poor attendance record. “But my understanding is that this man has not taken any time off that he has not told the company about,” he said. The immediate cause of the dispute was when the scaffolder had asked a foreman for two hours off for personal reasons. The foreman had refused. The JV2 spokesman said 19 of its own scaffolders 'struck soon after the man was dismissed. Yesterday, 20 other scaffolders employed by contractors on the site had also joined the action. Scaffolding already erected was then declared black by the workers. Later, other workers involved in its use — labourers, drivers, engineers, carpenters, and boilermakers — met. The spokesman said the carpenters had decided to remain at work, but all other groups walked off.