Union blames employer

Press, 9 March 1984, Page 5

Union blames employer

PA Auckland A dispute blocking butter deliveries to Auckland shops was not the fault of unions, said an official of the Northern Storepersons and Packers’ Union, Mr R. J. Davis, last evening. “We have got no control over the situation,” said Mr Davis. “If there is a butter shortage in Auckland it will not be created by the unions — it will be created by the company (Anchor Farm Products Co-operative, Ltd).” The workers will meet again today. A meeting was held yesterday between drivers and storemen, management and union delegates. At least two big supermarket chains yesterday began to restrict butter sales as the dispute over voluntary unionism continued to Salt deliveries. fl Drivers employed at Anchor Farm Products Cooperative, Ltd, walked out

on Wednesday in protest at having to work with two men who are not members of the Northern Drivers’ Union.

One man resigned and another, a new employee, refused to join. Most of the city’s butter is distributed by the Anchor drivers. Other products such as cheese and some lines of juices are also delivered by them.

A strike by 18 fertiliser workers at the Challenge phosphate plant at Otahuhu continued yesterday.

The action came after two employees notified their employers, the New Zealand Farmers’ Fertiliser ComS. Ltd, that they in■d to leave the Northern Chemical Fertiliser Workers’ Union.

Production at the plant has stopped. vt The union secretary, Mr H..E. Chitham, said that all staff would meet on Monday.

“Christian principles” motivated a clerk, Mr Craig Mortimer, to resign from his union at the A.F.F.C.O. Moerewa freezing works, causing a walkout that has led to a halt in the plant’s killing operations. Mr Mortimer said yesterday he also disliked the way the unions “push thenweight around.”

Clerks at the works who have voted not to work with non-union labour struck on Wednesday, forcing the company to begin winding down.

About 500 freezing workers were suspended yesterday and all but a few of the remaining. 400 were expected to be out of work by tonight, according to A.F.F.C.O. spokesman, Mr Laurie Lane. The clerical workers were on strike “illegally,” he said. Mr Mortimer said his resignation had been based on Christian principles, “But

even if I wasn’t a Christian, I think I would probably still have resigned,” he said. “In some ways it’s a matter of loyalty to the bosses, and in other ways it’s a dislike of the way the unions push their weight around.”

Mr Mortimer said he had been “fed up” with unionism generally for some time, but as a Christian he had stood by the law of the land. “Now the law has changed, I don’t wish to stay in,” he said. Two other clerical workers, he said, had handed their union resignations in on Friday, giving a month’s notice.

“So I will not exactly be alone. I am sure there are thousands around the country who want to get out and it takes somebody to make a start. That’s why I am hadftng on.” The national secretary of the Engineers’ Union, Mr Rex Jones, said in Christ-

church yesterday that closed shops should be legalised. Mr Jones said that comments by the deputy executive director of the Employers’ Federation, Mr R. E. Taylor, reported in “The Press” yesterday, highlighted the need for workable industrial legislation, respected by all parties.

The new legislation on voluntary unionism had been designed to provoke industrial tension in the workplace where none had existed before. “The law should be amended to provide for orderly voting procedures whereby workers in any company can vote by secret ballot to have a union preference shop. This would avoid unnecessary stoppages and loss of production and would allow the ; parties to work in harmony with the workers in those industries,” said Mr Jones.