One freezing workers’ union advocated

Press, 10 January 1987, Page 2

One freezing workers’ union advocated

One union of freezing workers in. New Zealand should exist to counter the strength of meat company monopoly, according to the president of the Meat Workers’ Union, Mr Roger Middlemass.

Mr Middlemass and Mr Jack Scott of Christchurch, the union’s assistant secretary, will contest a ballot next month for the position of national secretary of the union. Mr Middlemass said from Palmerston North on Thursday that he would like to see a new union for freezing workers rather than an amalgamation of the New Zealand Meat Workers’ Union and the Auckland Freezing Workers’ Union. He sees the growth of monopolies in the meat industry as a threat both to farmers and meat workers. While Mr Scott is a long-time member of the Labour Party, Mr Middlemass says he has never belonged to a politi-. cal party. He said he was not a Marxist and did not

like being pigeon-holed. Nor would he agree that he was a hard-liner. ' But that does not mean that he is a pragmatist, because that might indicate to some that he is an opportunist, which he is not, says Mr Middlemass.

“I would not suggest that what our union requires is someone who will judge each situation on • its merits, because what is needed is longterm planning,” he says.

Mr Middlemass believes strongly in rank and file participation in big deci-

sions such as strikes, although he agrees that leaders must lead and give advice. He says that secret ballots are preferable to directives being sent from the union executive or management committee.

Mr Middlemass is single, aged 49. He attended university, studying for a bachelor of arts degree, but before he completed his degree got a job at the Longbum works near Palmerston North.

“I ran out of money at university,” he says. He worked for 17 years as a mutton slaughterman, until 1974. Between 1966 and 1974 he was Longburn’s shed secretary, and from 1974 to 1987 has been president of the West Coast North Island branch of the union. He has been a national councillor of the Federation of Labour from 1981 to 1986 and in May last year was elected president of the Meat Workers’ Union, defeating Mr Rangi Paenga of Gisborne.