Meat workers’ union warning for companies

Press, 21 November 1986, Page 9

Meat workers’ union warning for companies

Freezing companies have been warned by the Canterbury branch secretary for the Meat Workers’ Union, Mr Tiny Kirk, not to suspend workers during industrial disputes.

Mr Kirk said last evening that if employers resorted to suspending people by using the Industrial Relations Act, workers would stay out one day after settlement had been reached for every day they had been suspended. This was why meat workers at Stevens N.C.F.Kaiapoi would not return to work until Monday, Mr Kirk said. Agreement on

the payment of allowances for slaughtering short-crutched stock, the reason for the dispute, had been reached yesterday.

Mr Kirk said the workers appreciated the premiums for winter killing the company had given. For that reason, freezer hands agreed to return to work yesterday, to help the company load a 52-container shipment of frozen meat due to leave port on Saturday. However, the rest of the workers wanted retribution, and wanted to show other companies what would happen if the Industrial Relations

Act was used again, he said.

“I just want to warn employers that our policy ... is that once you start using the Industrial Relations Act, we will give you an eye for an eye, and a day for a day.” Under this policy, the workers should not have returned to work until Wednesday, Mr Kirk said. However, they felt that by staying out until Monday their message would be just as clear.

Mr Kirk said the workers in the Kaiapoi dispute were not traditionally very militant, but' they felt strongly about this issue.