Trustee bank strike

Press, 7 December 1985, Page 3

Trustee bank strike

Trusteebank Canterbury had its first strike yesterday, after staff who are members of the Canterbury Clerical Workers’ Union went on strike.

While many striking staff, still in their red smocks, spent the day doing their Christmas shopping, managerial and senior staff joined juniors under the age of 18 and exempt from union membership to serve customers at the four branches that remained open. The service was limited to deposits and withdrawals. Automatic tellers were working.

Ten other branches were open for some of the morning but closed when the rest of the staff did not return from the stop-work meeting. Another 29 branches did not open at all. The secretary of the Canterbury Clerical Workers’ Union, Mr Leon Morel, said that the meeting voted by 345 to 152 to take the rest of the day off work to enforce their support for the award claims put forward by the New Zealand Clerical Association.

When talks on the award were adjourned the employers had offered increases ranging from 15.5

per cent for most adult workers to 34 per cent for 20-year-olds, who would be paid the adult rate instead of having to wait until they were 21 as in the present award. The association wants to maintain parity between trustee bank tellers and trading bank tellers, and has claimed increases ranging from 23 per cent to 34 per cent. Timaru members of the union also held a stop-work meeting and voted 41 to 25 to stay away from work yesterday. The workers at both meetings voted to support the association’s claims.

Trusteebank Canterbury workers who work on-Satur-days will work today;