Dispute quietens at hospital laundry

Press, 9 July 1983, Page 8

Dispute quietens at hospital laundry

A hospital laundry workers’ dispute over machinery noise in their new Christchurch central laundry has quietened. About 20 Sunnyside Hospital laundry workers refused earlier this week to transfer into the North Canterbury Hospital Board’s new laundry as planned next Monday. The board’s personnel officer, Mr P. F. Geoghegan, said that threat was withdrawn yesterday. After talks with union representatives, it was agreed that an engineer specialising in noise would inspect the laundry on Monday.

He also defended the board against an accusation of inaction, levelled by the canterbury regional committee of the Combined State Unions. “Our own view is that the whole fuss was not really necessary,” he said. The

board had already agreed to a full-scale study of noise levels when the laundry was running, employing more than 100 people to service all the board’s institutions.

A Labour Department study last February, when only some of the machinery was working, had identified some noise problem areas. The main offender was a conveyor belt which had been dismantled by the manufacturers more than once to reduce the noise.

“It is just a high pitched squeak that is there sometimes,” Mr Geoghegan said. Earmuffs had also been issued to laundry staff.

There would have been serious consquences if Sunnyside laundry workers had refused to transfer and gone on strike, he said. The hospital’s laundry would not have been done or the central laundry left to cope

with 20 fewer staff than needed.

The secretary of the regional committee, Mr J. M. McKenzie, said the board might have taken some measures but not enough. The noise from the conveyor belt as still unbearable.

Little progress had been made towards arranging a study of noise levels. The board seemed to be waiting until all the machinery was installed but that would mean too long a delay.

“We have made more progress today than we have really made since last November,” he said yesterday. The hearing of central laundry staff would now be tested. An engineer from the National Acoustics Centre of the Health Department, Mr John Twinn, would also inspect the laundry on Monday.