Numbers game for first day of C.T.U.

Press, 20 October 1987, Page 6

Numbers game for first day of C.T.U.

By

PETER LUKE

in Wellington An extra 50,000 members could not disguise the numbers game played out before delegates at the inaugural conference of the Council of Trade Unions yesterday. This new mega-union organisation will have just under 530,000 trade union members, an advance on the 480,000 budgeted for in the CT.U.’s finance committee’s report. But in spite of the almost 50,000 extra members, the opening day of the first conference was dominated by the system of electoral colleges

which will elect representatives of the CT.U.’s first national executive. Delegates from the Service Workers Federation, which represents workers from the hotel, hospital, and cleaners and caretakers unions, sought greater representation from the C.T.U., a plea which was followed by a similar request from the powerful Public Service Association. Earlier the secretary of the Federation of Labour, Mr Ken Douglas, had reiterated the same security issues that had been present at the F.O.L. conference in May. Questions of

security and accountable ity dominated Mr Colin Hicks, the chairman of the Combined State Unions, chaired the opening session. The president of the Federation of Labour, Mr Jim Knox, had been unable ,to attend through illness. The Federation of Labour secretary, Mr Ken Douglas, remained the favourite for the post of president of the C.T.U. One of the leading candidates for the post of secretary was the general secretary of the Post Office Union, Mr Ron Burgess.