Meat workers, farmers ‘set up’

Press, 18 February 1986, Page 15

Meat workers, farmers ‘set up’

PA Wellington A Government-orches-trated class war between meat workers and farmers on the size of the meat workers’ wage increase this year would be totally destructive, said the Opposition’s spokesman on agriculture, Mr Bolger, yesterday. Mr Bolger appealed for calm in the industry. He said that both sides should recognise they had been “set up” by the Government’s economic policies.

He said that on one hand those policies had destroyed farm profitability and on the other unleashed huge cost increases on workers. The factors had led to the high wage demands, he said. “The meat industry has to adopt modern technology and new manning practices but this must be achieved without the additional cost and divisive effect of a prolonged strike,” Mr Bolger said.

Farmers and meat workers should direct their understandable anger at the real cause of their problem, the Government’s economic policy, he said.