Miss Richardson sides with Fortex

Press, 16 November 1987, Page 6

Miss Richardson sides with Fortex

The vast majority of workers at Fortex’s Seafield freezing works support the company’s shiftwork proposals, according to the Opposition’s spokeswoman on finance, Miss Ruth Richardson. In a statement issued on behalf of herself and her colleague, the member of Parliament for Ashburton, Ms Jenny Shipley, Miss Richardson said that there was more at stake than just shift-work at that one plant. Fortex is trying to introduce shifts on its slaughterboard, and would be the first company in New Zealand to do so. It does not have the agreement of the Meat Workers’ Union, and the two will take their dispute

to the Labour Court tomorrow.

Shift-work had implications for meat workers, meat producers, and the economic survival of the country, said Miss Richardson.

Workers were “literally queueing up” for the 70 new jobs shift-work would create at Seafield, and the firm’s chief executive, Mr Graeme Thompson, had told Miss Richardson yesterday that 88 per cent of the workforce had signed a petition in support of shift-work.

“It is the grossest infringement of their democratic rights for the trade union movement to frustrate their desire to proceed,” she said.

Miss Richardson said that it was a major test case for producers, who needed the reduced costs and Improved productivity shift-work would bring.

As far as New Zealand was concerned, it was now “desperate” that ventures such as Fortex succeeded, she said. Miss Richardson said that the “villains of the piece” were the Government, in its decision to reregulate the labour market, and the trade unions, in their interference with the democratic decisions of the workforce. “The Meat Workers’ Union is saying ‘we won’t have shift work, and tough luck for the people of Ashburton who want jobs’," she said.