Meat workers don’t expect 15.5%—Minister

Press, 24 February 1986, Page 4

Meat workers don’t expect 15.5% —Minister

Most meat industryworkers do not expect to get the 15.5 per cent wage increase they have asked for and know their employers cannot afford it, says the Minister of Labour, Mr Rodger. Mr Rodger was commenting on the latest development in the industrial disputes which threaten to halt New Zealand’s meat works this week.

After a meeting between the Federation of Labour and the Meat Industry Association on Friday, freezing works tradesmen announced that they would strike from midnight tomorrow. On Saturday the Meat Workers’ Union announced that its members would strike at the same time.

The unions have claimed a 15.5 per cent wage increase, which the industry says it cannot afford to pay. Instead it has offered meat workers $23 a week, and tradesmen $25 a week — an increase of 4 to 5 per cent

Mr Rodger said yesterday that most workers did not expect to get 15.5 per cent, because of the state of the industry. “I think a lot of the workers in the industry

are not optimistic about succeeding,” he said. "But that is what their leaders are calling for.” The president of the Federation of Labour, Mr Jim Knox, said Mr Rodger knew the workers did expect an increase of 15.5 per cent “That is why they are prepared to take some action,” Mr Knox said. “They expect to get the 15.5 per cent, but this time they also expect that the Government will bring about some discussions.”

But Mr Rodger said the Government had no intention of trying to bring the two parties together soon.

The Government would not intervene in the dispute because it had no legislative power to do so. Mr Rodger also said the Government did not want to become involved in an industry conference, proposed by Mr Knox, while the industrial dispute continued.

Long-term matters within the industry, concerning the impact of technology, must be examined carefully. This should be done outside the context of this award round, Mr Rodger said.

Mr Knox said the employers’ claim that they could not afford to pay

15.5 per cent did not hold up in view of the purchase of Borthwicks works by Waitaki N.Z. Refrigerating last week. “They can always find millions of dollars to take over other freezing companies, but they can never find the necessary money to see that the workers get paid a just wage,” Mr Knox said. Mr Joe Ryan, chairman of the Meat Industry Association, said Mr Knox showed “a deplorable absence of commercial judgment” by making that comment “Rationalisation of the industry, which Waitaki’s purchase of Borthwicks is part of, is one of the major ways in which work opportunities will be salvaged,” Mr Ryan said. Both parties have said the dispute could be drawn-out. Although Mr Knox said the F.O.L. was willing to talk with employers, Mr Ryan said there would be no further discussions until the strikes were called off.

Neither Mr Ryan nor the general managers or the Canterbury Frozen Meat and Kaiapoi works thought the dispute would cause financial problems for their companies. Mr Bob Trounce, gen-

eral manager of the Kaiapoi works, said the same amount of stock would have to be killed, but it would only be delayed. Neither would exports be badly affected. Farm leaders have urged the parties to solve the dispute quickly. They say farmers are planning next year’s production and might start looking to alternative products. Hugh Stringleman, farm editor of “The Press” reports that farmers are reasonably well placed to stand a long works strike.

Regular rain during the summer has grown a. relative abundance of feed on the plains and lambs can be held for a while. However, most lambs, while gaining weight by way of extra fat, will not add value for the farmer because of the price structure for prime grades.

This will stiffen fanners’ resolve to ensure that gains in meat works’ efficiency, at no extra cost to producers, result from the strike.

Farmers in financial straits cannot afford to fund big wage settlements in the meat industry. As sheepmeat prices are now so low, farmers in a sense have, nothing to lose from this -industrial battle.