Angry cleaners plan secret strike ballot

Press, 1 May 1984, Page 8

Angry cleaners plan secret strike ballot

PA Wellington The Cleaners’ Union, angry over company managers being used to clean Wellington Airport during their strike, is planning to hold secret strike ballots among two large groups of cleaners employed by Crothalls Property Services. The union’s secretary, Mr Pat Kelly, said that secret ballots would be held over the next 72 hours. He would not say where. “I am quite confident that those secret ballots for strike action will be carried. “Then we will advise Crothalls Property Services that if they continue to work at the airport then we will give them another 25 to 30 buildings to clean,” he said. Mr Kelly said he had spoken to affiliated unions in other districts, including Auckland, about possible follow-up action outside Wellington. The Auckland union would be looking at the possibility of pulling cleaners out of Auckland Airport, which was also cleaned by Crothalls, he said. The pay claim is for parity with school caretakers who earn $5.05 an hour. The rate paid in the

private sector is $4.55. The National Union of Railwaymen has written to the Railways Corporation asking it to approach the Government for an exemption from the wage freeze to allow wage-bargaining to The New Zealand Drivers’ Federation also said it would file a national claim for a $35-a-week wage increase with employers. If the response was negative the drivers would make claims regionally, and. to individual employers, said the federation’s national secretary, Mr Stuart McCaffley, yesterday. If there was no response, industrial action would take place, he said. What form it would take would be up to the unions in each area. In Auckland combined unions at F. M. Winstone’s, Ltd, paint and varnish workers at Coates Brothers, Ltd, and stores workers at Vitafoam have all approached their employers asking for a resumption of wages bargaining. The month-long strike by 133 workers at Union Carbide Auckland was discussed yesterday at a conference before an industrial conciliator, Mr John Bufton. The employees are calling

for a return to wage negotiation.

About 160 riggers working on the New Zealand Steel construction project at Glenbrook struck yesterday and are likely to continue the stoppage today. The men are believed to have taken the action because of an argument concerning the employment of one rigger on the site. In response New Zealand Steel Development, Ltd, yesterday issued suspension notices to the riggers. Work was returning to normal at the Marsden Point oil refinery expansion site yesterday morning after upheavals last week which centred on the continued employment of seven scaffolders who had won injunctions aimed at guaranteeing their employment. The Labourers’ Union contingent on the site returned to work after a site meeting yesterday morning. The scaffolding contingent of the union, about 180 men, had been on strike since April 27. They were joined in their industrial action on Friday by the rest of the labourers on site. Soon after the labourers returned to work the boilermakers also went back.