Special-case exemptions to wage freeze

Press, 2 May 1984, Page 2

Special-case exemptions to wage freeze

Parliamentary reporter Field staff at the Christ-church-based Livestock Improvement Association (South Eland), Incorporated, can negotiate a new award as a result of the latest amendment to the wage freeze regulations.

The Minister of Labour, Mr Bolger, said yesterday that the award covering these field staff had not been renewed in the 1981-82 wage round. It is believed the nonrenewal of the field staffs award had only recently come to the notice of the f Labour Department As it had not been included in the 1981-82 wage round, it qualified for an exemption from the present wage-freeze regulations. Cleaners employed by Crothall Industries on the Caxton Paper Mills site at Kawerau have also been exempted from the regulations for the same reason. The latest amendments, approved by the Executive Council last Monday, also cater for several new employment relationships, Mr Bolger said. These include the working of twilight shifts by Duncan and Davies, Ltd; the manufacture of medicated pharmaceutical confectionery by Griffin and Sons, Ltd; the employment by the Egmont Electric Power Board of systems controllers to run the Patea hydro-electric generating station; the construction work to be undertaken by contractors to N.Z. Forest Products, Ltd, to modernise their Kinleith pulp mill and sawmills; and the introduction by Gearbulk Shipping, N.Z., Ltd, of a new vessel on the New Zealand coast. Contracting companies to the pulp and paper industry have been allowed to file notices of concurrence with the Tokoroa Engineer and Boilermakers’ Contractors’ Employees Composite Agreement, while Air New Zealand has also been allowed to renegotiate certain provisions for ground stewards at Wellington airport after the airline’s resumption of international flights to the Pacific islands out of Wellington.