Picket hampers clean-up of U.E.B. mill

Press, 28 August 1986, Page 8

Picket hampers clean-up of U.E.B. mill

The final clean-up of the U.E.B. spinning mill of Bromley, which closed last week, is being hampered by a picket mounted by the mill’s three boiler attendants. The three men are members of the Stationary Engine Drivers’ Union which rejected the redundancy agreement accepted last week by the mill’s other 245 workers.

They have been picketing the gates this week, with the backing of the Canterbury Trades Council, preventing the movement of goods on to and off the site.

A skeleton staff of volunteers is at work in the mill, finishing off wool left over from last week, but the picket has prevented packaging getting in and the finished wool

getting out “A considerable amount of work is in process, but three people are effectively holding us up,” said the general manager of the U.E.B. Wool Group, Mr Laurie Powell, from Auckland, yesterday. The picket has also prevented a bulldozer from going on to the site to bury about three tonnes of wet wool, which has started to rot because it had not been dried after dying. "Our understanding is that they were not able to get steam to dry that wool. It is now too late to save it,” said Mr Powell.

Mr Powell said that he would be in Christchurch tomorrow when he hoped to resolve the problem in talks with the picketers and their union.

The union’s branch secretary, Mr Norman Dewes, said that he would meet Mr Powell, but the union’s aim would be saving jobs rather than accepting redundancy pay. The company needed to justify its actions in closing the mill, he said.

The union would seek to keep at least a section of the plant open before considering any alternatives.

Mr Dewes said that the wasted wool had ndt been dried, not because his men had refused to fire up the boilers, but because they had not been asked to do so.

In any case, the company would first have to withdraw the redundancy notices before they would go back to work, he said.