Strike by rubber workers set to continue

Press, 16 December 1985, Page 1

Strike by rubber workers set to continue

Canterbury rubber workers will strike indefinitely after turning down yesterday a proposal by employers to have a four-week-old pay dispute referred to the Arbitration Court.

The 650 striking rubber workers have brought to a halt production at four Christchurch rubber factories — Firestone, Dunlop, Feltex and Skellerup. The shortage of raw materials has also prompted the suspension of up to 200 footwear workers at the Skellerup factory. The workers have been striking since November 21 over a pay relativity and bonus agreement issue. The union claims a 16.45 per cent increase on the basic award rates. The employers have offered 15.7 per cent.

While the difference between the two parties is about $1.60 a week, the rubber workers’ union secretary, Mr Roger Brott, said that it was the issue of relativity which was at stake.

The union was fighting to retain relativity with the workers in the Metal Trades Award. The two awards had been linked for 15 years, said Mr Brott. About 550 of the rubber workers met yesterday and confirmed their rejection of the • employers’ proposal to take the pay issue to arbitration and settle the remainder of the agreement on the basis of a return to work.

Mr Brott said that the union had bent over backwards, and given away virtually every claim to get a settlement that would maintain the wage relativity that the rubber workers had had since 1970. The only conditions agreed on had been an increased meal allowance and an extra week’s holiday after six years’ work. None of the workers had suggested a return to work at the meeting, so the strike would continue until the employers changed their stance.

With rubber workers earning award rates of from $2OO to $215 a week (gross) plus bonuses ranging from $3O to $4O, it is estimated that it will take them at least 11 years to make up the $1.60 a week they are claiming, after losing four weeks’ pay during the strike.

A lot. of people did not realise just what distasteful conditions rubber workers had to put up with, said Mr Brott. Rubber factories were dirty, noisy and full of chemicals. Workers were not in rubber factories for the love of it, but for the money. A welfare fund had been set up to provide those in need with food vouchers.

However, the fund was not big and a number of rubber workers were in “dire straits,” and faced the prospect of a bleak Christmas, said Mr Brott.

A group of workers not involved in the strike but almost affected as much, are the footwear workers at the factory which makes shoes at Skellerup. A shortage of raw materials has meant intermittent suspension for many of the 330 workers.

The footwear workers supported their rubber working colleagues’ claims and would continue to sup j port them, said the secretary of the Canterbury Footwear Workers’ Union, Mr Toby Jordan. He expected up to 200 footwear workers to be suspended by tomorrow. The loss of income had left some workers in straitened circumstances. Collections had been taken up among footwear workers who had not been suspended to help those in financial difficulty. Mr Jordan said that he could not understand, however, why other unions who were also affected by the lack of production at the rubber factories such as the drivers and engineers, had not also been suspended. “We have borne the bruntof it,” he said.

The employers’ representative, Mr Neil McPhail, said that he had heard on the radio of the rubber workers’ decision to continue the strike, but had not yet discussed what the employers what steps would next be taken. He doubted that the employers would budge from their present stance. As far as the employers were concerned they had retained general relativity by increasing the bottom salary rate by the going 16.44 per cent, he said. The union, however, argued that they wanted relativity throughout.