Firm’s head to meet strikers

Press, 9 December 1983, Page 1

Firm’s head to meet strikers

Striking workers at W. H. Price and Son, Ltd, will meet today the managing director of the Dunedin firm which gave them four weeks notice last Friday. Mr G. W. T. Christie, managing director of J. and T. Christie, Ltd, and the Deputy Mayor of Dunedin, had agreed to come to Christchurch to speak to the

sacked workers, said the secretary of the Brass Moulders’ Union, Mr Norman Dewes, yesterday. Mr Christie had earlier said that he was too busy to leave Dunedin. Among the matters to be discussed were the possibility of the union and the workers buying 50 per cent

of the firm, and the withdrawal of termination notices “until such time as the closing of the business is fully justified,” said Mr Dewes. Christie’s took over the 104-year-old family firm of Price and Son earlier this year. Last. Friday it announced that the engineering and pump-manufactur-

ing business would have to be closed because its financial plight was much worse than at first thought. Mr Dewes said he hoped that Mr Christie might have had second thoughts about the closing. The 35 employees laid off were still on strike yesterday.