Strike over redundancy pay

Press, 16 July 1986, Page 1

Strike over redundancy pay

Forty .Canterbury Engineering Company engineers went on strike at 1 p.m. yesterday in a dispute over severance pay for four redundant workers.

The company’s general manager, Mr R. W. Kingsley, said that if the strike affected the continuity of supply (of general engineering goods) to customers it would be very serious and a threat to the continuity of employment of all the staff at the factory. The secretary of the Canterbury branch of the Engineers’ Union, Mr Bob Todd, said that a load-out ban had been imposed last week, then lifted last Friday to allow more redundancy talks yesterday. The 40 workers had gone on strike when the company failed to make an acceptable proposal.

Mr Todd said that the workers would return tomorrow and continue with rolling stoppages until the company made an acceptable proposal. Mr Kingsley said that

the company was obliged to follow the advice of the Canterbury Employers’ Association which had advised that there was no requirement to pay the two redundant workers who had given less than a year’s service and who had other jobs to go to.

The other two workers had given 15 months service, and to these the company had offered the maximum legal payment under a formula of four weeks pay for the first year of service and two weeks pay for each subsequent year. The main sticking point at yesterday’s talks had been the company’s refusal to pay anything to the two with less than a year’s service, said Mr Kingsley.

Mr Todd said that the union was seeking a package similar to that offered in the recent Railways and Wrightson-Crown redundancies, where some fringe benefits were given as well as severance payments.