Strikes may slow flow of festive drinking

Press, 1 December 1987, Page 1

Strikes may slow flow of festive drinking

RICHARD CRESSWELL,

industrial reporter

Christmas drinking may be curtailed by industrial action. Four hundred hotel workers voted in Christchurch yesterday in support of stoppages on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. The Hotel and Hospital Workers’ Union members voted also in favour of rolling stoppages to be decided by a disputes committee, which will meet in the next few days. The union’s Canterbury assistant secretary, Mr Marty Braithwaite, said workers had rejected a wage offer of 7 per cent. The union had asked for a $4O a week wage increase (between 10.5 and 15.3 per cent) and a 14.9 per cent increase on allowances. Workers will ban duties at bars with T.A.B. terminals, and “unpleasant” duties, ignore footwear rules, and will walk off the job in kitchens and laundries if it “gets too hot”

Mr Braithwaite said the rolling stoppages would be co-ordinated nationally and run by the' disputes committee. I The employers’ pay offer is tagged to a claim for greater flexibility in the hotel industry for employing casual staff, something the union is vigorously resisting. > The union claims also' the replacement of staff possessions if they are damaged in any hotel violence, double time dn Sundays, and triple time for statutory holidays. / Mr Braithwaite said/employers had threatened to prevent arrangements for uniog deductions from wages. > . j Thp. Hotel Association’s chief executive, Mr Tom Sheehy, said the group had gone to the talks to negotiate and not to suffer the demands of an intransigent union — a union that had already tried its level best to bring the health system to its knees. 5 The union had stnick over the hotel award for the last three years. Ito pay claim could cost a

big hotel up to $lOOO a day, he said. The manager of the South Island division for Dominion Breweries’ hotels and taverns, Mr Stan Williams, said the stoppages may not go ahead. “The situation may change, but we will take our direction from the Hotel Association executive,” he said. Mr Williams confirmed that in the past the company had used salaried staff to run bars during strikes and that would be an option if action was takdL Mr Braithwaite said notices given by Hancock and Company to its employees contained a number of misleading statements. “Basically we believe that Hancock and Company (which runs the Lion operations) are embarking on a smear campaign which deliberately misuses Rick Barker.” (Mr Barker is the secretary of the New Zealand Hotel and Hospital Workers’ Union.)