Liggett resignation offer rejected

Press, 15 December 1983, Page 1

Liggett resignation offer rejected

A resignation offer by the secretary of the Canterbury and West Coast Drivers’ Union, Mr P. R. Liggett, was rejected unanimously by the union’s board of management yesterday. Mr Liggett offered to resign after $6OOO damages were awarded against him in the High Court on Tuesday in an action brought by a former union member, Mr P. M. O’Boyle, for conspiracy. Mr Liggett was one of 11 members and former members of the union against whom a total of $52,400 in damages was awarded by a jury. He has held the post for 11 years and wanted an assurance that he still had the backing of the union’s executive.

After the meeting he said that if the board had not supported him, he would have asked himself why he

should “continue to sustain various threats of numerous kinds.” Asked if the union would pay the $6OOO for him, Mr Liggett said that one board member had raised the pos-

sibility but that because he had been sued as an individual, he was liable. For that reason, he said, the damages award had “nothing to do with the union.” This was unusual. Generally the union was cited as first defendant in actions brought against its officers and, provided that they had complied with union policy, they were indemnified against personal loss. However, the plaintiff decided who would be sued and in this case, Mr O’Boyle had elected to sue him and 10 others as individuals, Mr Liggett said. “My wife is concerned in relation to our future because we don’t have $6OOO — very few people on truckdrivers’ wages have,” he said. Mr Liggett said that the board had not yet decided whether to take the case to appeal; it was awaiting legal advice which he thought would be forthcoming some time next week. Feedback from rank-and-file union members yesterday had been supportive, he said, and to his knowledge no-one had telephoned his office to say, “It serves you right.” He said that he had been out most of the time. He did not think that the damages awarded against him would affect his credibility as union secretary. “I believe that my respectability round Christchurch in relation to employers, other organisations, and people whom I deal with will not be challenged at all,” he said.

“I have known a lot of people for a long time and my feelings are that they should know how I operate by now.” However, the case and the outcome of it had raised important issues for the trade union movement, es-

pecially with the passage of the Industrial Law Reform Act, introducing voluntary unionism, Mr Liggett said. Mr O’Boyle declined to make any comment yesterday, on the advice of his lawyer. Mrs Mary O’Boyle said at the family’s Wainoni home that the case was not yet legally closed.