Press Company applies for secret ballot

Press, 29 February 1984, Page 2

Press Company applies for secret ballot

The Christchurch Press Company, Ltd, has applied to the Arbitration Court to order a secret ballot of New Zealand Journalists’ Union members employed by the company. The ballot had been sought because of the action of the journalists’ chapel in banning the work of the company’s Timaru representative, Mr D. W. Hodge, who resigned from the union when voluntary unionism became legal on February 1, said the general manager of the Press Company, Mr R. A. Barker, yesterday.

The company’s application to the court said it believed that the refusal by union members to handle Mr Hodge’s copy constituted strike action in terms of section 123 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1973. Mr Barker said that the company believed that the industrial action taken by union members might not have the support of the

majority of journalists employed by the company. “This is the reason for the request for a secret ballot to be conducted pursuant to section 126 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1973, as amended by section 12 of the Industrial Relations Amendment Act, 1983,” he said. Mr Barker said the action had serious consequences for the company because: • Mr Hodge was being paid to do his normal duties but the work he produced was not being handled in the normal way by union members. ® Comprehensive news coverage was not being provided in “The Press” for all subscribers of the newspaper. • Southern readers, especially those living in and around the Timaru area, were not receiving their normal local news coverage. The Journalists’ Union chapel delegate at “The

Press,” Ms Karren Beanland, said that the chapel would discuss the company’s move at a meeting tomorrow. The union would have no reason to object to a secret ballot on this issue or any other, she said. A deputy registrar of the Arbitration Court in Wellington, Mr P. E. O’Brien, said that under the normal course of events the case could take three months to be heard. “It will be referred to Chief Judge Horne when he returns from Nelson on Monday and it is up to his discretion when the case is heard,” he said. The company has asked for urgency in deciding the application. Mr O’Brien said that this was the first time such an application had been filed with the Arbitration Court. Mr Hodge said from Timaru yesterday afternoon that it was “a little premature” to make any comment.