14.8% rise in dairy award

Press, 14 October 1985, Page 1

14.8% rise in dairy award

The dairy factory award was settled in Wellington on Saturday with a 14.8 per cent basic wage rise. The settlement comes between the 12.5 per cent average of the shipping clerical officers’ award and the 15.5 per cent for electrical contractors’ workers (except Canterbury). However, the total package gives dairy factory workers pay increases of between 16 and 30 per cent. The few workers to get 30 per cent are those who will get a 14.8 per cent rise in their basic rate and 16 per cent as a productivity allowance already given

to most others in the industry. The award covers the wages and conditions of about 5000 workers, most of them in the dairy heartland of New Zealand in Waikato, Bay of FJlenty, South Auckland, and Northland. In Canterbury the main factory is the Tai Tapu Central Co-op Dairy Company, which employs about 25 dairy factory workers. Almost all dairy factories are owned co-operatively by dairy farmers, and it is they who will have to foot the bill for the wage increase. The chairman of the dairy section of North Canterbury

Federated Farmers, Mr Richard Simpson, said last evening that farmers would be relieved that the award was settled because of the fear that if there was industrial action over an unsettled award it could lead to milk losses. However, there would be concern about the wage increase because dairy farmers faced an uncertain future. The outlook in the short term was not the best, with the prospect of a price to the farmer of less than the present $4 a kilogram of milk in the next (1986-87) season at a time when other costs were rising,