New turn in wage talks?

Press, 4 November 1986, Page 2

New turn in wage talks?

The campaign by the Engineers’ Union to achieve a higher than 6 per cent pay increase could take a new turn in Christchurch from today. Shop stewards will meet this morning to hear back from union officials on developments in the campaign. They will be told that in Auckland two leading companies have been “targeted.” Those companies have until tomorrow to tell the Employers’ Federation to

agree to settlements of 6 per cent now and a 3 per cent top-up next year. If they do not, they will face industrial action. The secretary of the Canterbury branch of the union, Mr Bob Todd, said that the meeting would be looking at tactics which could be used to make employers realise that the union claims were not unrealistic. No dates have been set for the resumption of conciliation talks on the metal trades award. The

talks broke down at the beginning of October. By late yesterday four companies in Christchurch had agreed to pay engineers a 6 per cent wage increase now and 3 per cent next year. Three of the companies, with a total of 480 engineers employed, reached agreement late last month, and a fourth agreed yesterday to pay 6 per cent now and 3 per cent next year. Mr Todd would say only that the fourth was “large.”