Wool trade upset feared

Press, 25 January 1988, Page 1

Wool trade upset feared

PA Timaru Wool scour workers were due to impose a national loadout ban from midnight last night after a breakdown in their award talks, a union leader said yesterday. The Meat Workers’ Union national secretary, Mr Jack Scott, said the wool scour award talks broke down in December and members voted for industrial action in the form of a load-out ban on January 10. However, Mr Scott said, the employers sought a return to conciliation and the union agreed on condition a pass-on clause, protecting payments under site agreements, was written into the award. The scour workers called off their action and returned to talks last week but found that the employers were reneging on the proposal, Mr Don Quested, managing director of Hartwool, Christchurch, a big exporter, said yesterday the load-out ban would seriously affect export shipments. With interest rates at 20 per cent and on a consignment of $lOO,OOO worth of wool exporters would face huge additional expenses in any disruption to the normal loading out of wool, he said. Mr Brent Turnbull, manager of the Fairlie Scour, at Washdyke, said scour plants would continue processing wool until storage was exhausted. However, the ban would cause problems for wool exporters who had containers (each with $lOO,OOO worth of wool) missing shipments and interest rates building up. The threatened ban arises from a dispute regarding a pass-on clause on in-house rates in the woolscour award. The union claims employers have reneged on an agreement to include the pass-on clause in the award but the employers say the inhouse agreements no longer apply under the provisions of the new Labour Relations Act. Mr Scott said meat workers would be balloted on a recommendation to take strike once the killing season became busier. In negotiations on the meat workers’ award, the union had reduced its pay claim to 8.6 per cent, but they wanted “section 13” payments — the incentive and piecework contract rates — identified in the award. Employers in both awards, had offered 7 per cent increases. Mr Scott said 7 per cent on “book” rates represented $24 a week to slaughtermen and $23 to wool pullers and other piece workers.