Brewery workers strike continues

Press, 6 March 1984, Page 9

Brewery workers strike continues

Beer crates seem likely to keep piling up unused at the D.B. South Island brewery, near Timaru, in a strike over the union resignation of two crateassembly workers. The South Island secretary of the Allied Liquor Trades Union, Mr Max Fletcher, said a last-ditch effort by their four striking colleagues had failed yesterday to persuade the two men to rejoin the union, so their names had been released to the news media.

“It looks as though that strike might continue indefinitely,” he said.

All six workers were employed by the Associated Bottlers Company but worked in the crateassembly section at the D.B. plant. The two men, Messrs Robert Paniora and Trevor Grandi, were still assembling crates but Mr Fletcher predicted that they would start running out of storage space at the end of this week. It would take several more days before the brewery started to feel the

effects of the black ban placed on handling crates by other workers.

Messrs Paniora and Grandi had been “up in arms” when told yesterday that a meeting of brewery workers had voted to publish their names if they could not be persuaded to rejoin the union. “There is just nothing else we can do,” Mr Fletcher said. “They have taken this stand, therefore they must take the support or wrath of other people.” Names had been published in other disputes over union resignations. Mr Fletcher said he personally did not think the two men would rejoin the union, although neither would tell their striking colleagues yesterday the reasons for their dissatisfaction.

He believed one had already changed his telephone number to an unlisted one.

From Hamilton, the Press Association reports that the voluntary unionism dispute at Toyota’s Thames car plant was resolved yesterday by the non-union assembler at the centre of the

dispute deciding to quit work.

On Friday 360 workers struck for 24 hours after a fellow worker resigned from the Engineer’s Union. A union official, Mr Mike Sweeney, said the worker, who resigned from the union, had also resigned from the company. That had taken the issue away. The Horotiu freezing works, near Hamilton, was at a standstill yesterday after clerical workers again walked off the site rather than work with non-union labour. The female clerk at the centre of the dispute has worked at Horotiu for six years and has declined to discuss her resignation. The clerks have been on strike since last Thursday. In Auckland, a week’s strike at Camalco Extrusions, Ltd, ended yesterday when a process worker rejoined the Engineer’s Union. The 160 Engineer’s Union members at the Mount Wellington factory had refused to work with nonunion labour but resumed work yesterday when Mr Eddie Brown rejoined.