Employers ‘eager’ for metal settlement

Press, 27 November 1986, Page 7

Employers ‘eager’ for metal settlement

Canterbury employers covered by the metal trades award have shown interest in wage settlements above 6 per cent, according to a Christchurch trade union official.

The assistant secretary of the Canterbury branch of the Engineers’ Union, Mr Jed O’Connell, has dismissed a report that southern employers were resisting deals above 6 per cent.

The report suggested that South Island employers were the key obstacle to general employer concessions. Mr O’Connell said his union had recently received numerous ap-

proaches from employers eager to make deals. Two had offered an immediate 6 per cent wage increase, with another 3 per cent next year. Others had offered 6 per cent now, and had said that if the award settlement in the metal trade negotiations was higher, they would pay the difference.

"We cannot find any employers saying they are prepared to offer 5 per cent and are confident their workers will take it,” Mr O’Connell said. The multi-district award covering about 500 cable workers in Canterbury was signed yesterday. The employers had agreed to

a 6 per cent increase from October 10, and another 3 per cent from April.

Mr O’Connell said he had no doubt that the employers’ eagerness to make deals had been influenced by the industrial action taken recently by his union. That action would continue tomorrow and on Monday. Union members in essentia! industries would meet to discuss taking industrial action on December 5 and 8. These workers, employed in the drainage, transport and electrical industries, had already given notice of industrial action, he said.