Clyde work resumes; conference accepted

Press, 26 September 1984, Page 8

Clyde work resumes; conference accepted

PA Dunedin Work resumed on the Clyde dam construction project yesterday after the wage workers employed by the private contractor, Zub-lin-Williamson, lifted a picket just after 1 p.m. and returned to work at 6 p.m.

The return to work after 13 days of strike action resulted from the call by the Minister of Labour, Mr Rodger, late on Monday night for parties involved in the dispute to attend a complusory conference. The pickets, which were placed on the three main gates on Monday remained in place yesterday morning in spite of the compulsory conference call. This was because the combined unions employed by the joint venture wanted to see the full text of the terms of reference for the conference.

Negotiations about this were taking place in Wellington and at Clyde and it was not until 1.10 p.m. yesterday that the union leaders were satisfied with the wording, and ordered the pickets to be lifted.

This allowed work on the powerhouse to be resumed by employees of the Ministry of Works and Development.

The picket had been supported by the Ministry’s wage workers, who are members of the New Zealand Workers' Union, and by members of the Public Service Association.

At 2 p.m. joint-venture workers met in Clyde and the advocate for the combined unions, Mr C. J. Fisher, said that the meeting accepted the conditions for the compulsory conference, which is expected to be held next week in Alexandra.

Mr Fisher said the chairman, Mr B. P. Gray, will have the power to decide on the issue of dismissed carpenters if the parties are unable to come to an agreement On other issues in dispute he can make recommendations to the Minister of Labour about ways of achieving settlement. The full shift of Ministry workers started at 3 p.m., and, although there were difficulties in arranging a

start-up at the joint venture’s site, because of the strike, the contractor was able to get under way by 6 pan. The strike resulted from the refusal by the joint venture to reinstate two carpenters it dismissed five weeks ago after they were allegedly involved in a Cromwell hotel brawl, where two of the consortium’s German supervisors were assaulted. The Combined Unions insisted that the two men be given their jobs back. The joint venture insisted that the dismissal stand.

Attempts to settle the dispute by a grievance hearing failed, as did informal talks over a period of several days. The dispute escalated into a shutdown of the site when the company applied to the Arbitration Court for a hearing. The two German supervisors have resigned from their contract and will leave the site on Tuesday. The Ministry of Works revealed in Wellington yesterday that Zublin-William-

son could incur costs of 590,000 a day if contract completion dates are not met.

The Ministry’s chief power engineer, Mr Michael Williams, said that to date the contractor had not achieved performance rates required to meet those dates.

Present deadlines provided for a lake-filling date of January, 1988, he said. Mr Williams said the Ministry did not in any way hold Zublin-Williamson responsible for additional costs resulting from the additional excavation of about 200,000 cubic metres required for the dam foundation.

He said the original Zub-lin-Williamson contract was for about $lBO million and this now, allowing for inflation and cost increases, stood at about $l5B million.

The present estimates for the total cost of the dam, in March, 1984 figures, was $586 million, compared with the committal estimate of $435 million, worked out in September, 1980, Mr Williams said.