Work resumes at factory

Press, 12 June 1984, Page 5

Work resumes at factory

Production resumed at the Hornby factory of J. Wattie Canneries yesterday after a one-day stoppage on Friday. At first, the stoppage was by only about 12 charge hands, who were showing dissatisfaction with a wage anomaly, but it spread to the rest of the production workers when they found that salaried staff had done some of the work normally done by charge hands. Rubber workers and several other groups of produc-

tion workers and tradesmen at five Skellerup factories also went on strike on Friday and will not return to work until tomorrow, when they will meet again to decide whether to take further action or resume work. They are on strike over the company’s hiring policy, which the unions say does not adequately cater for former employees. About 80 linemen and cable jointers at the Municipal Electricity Department in Christchurch met yester-

day and decided on what a union spokesman called “a line of action” which would not be revealed until tomorrow, when 14 days notice of industrial action expires. The linemen and jointers want the Government to allow an exemption to the wage freeze regulations to allow them to correct a wage anomaly which their employer, the Christchurch City Council, has agreed to rectify if it is permitted by the Wage Freeze Authority.