More talks on slaughter shift

Press, 21 October 1987, Page 4

More talks on slaughter shift

RICHARD CRESSWELL

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Martrlal rayerter

The Fortex Group and the Meatworkera' Unkm will meet again next week for two days of talks aimed at reaching final agreement on a second slaughter shift at the Seafield plant the company announced yesterday. Negotiations between the unkm and Fortex to employ 70 people to work the second slaughter shift at Seafield began several months ago and are at an

impasse. Fortex Group's managing director, Mr Graeme Thompson, said the company was dealing with the union at national level in an effort to ■ resolve the situation. The national committee of the union has appointed a five man negotiating team to meet Fortex in Christchurch next Wednesday and Thursday. The union’s negotiating team includes two representatives from the Canterbury branch, two from the national union and one from the Auckland branch.

Earlier this year Fortex doubled the size of its Seafield plant to accommodate two shifts of workers, killing and processing into supermarketready cuts a million lambs a year over twelve months of the year. The slaughter floor will be the last area In the plant to run a second shift, and until that shift starts, the plant-cannot be cost-effec-tive.