Meat award talks break down

Press, 20 February 1988, Page 2

Meat award talks break down

Meat workers’ award talks broke down in Christchurch yesterday, in spite of early indications of progress. As on the last three occasions the two sides have met, the stumbling block was the so-called “section 13” agreement on in-house incentive payments. The union wants to maintain the longstanding arrangement whereby wage rises negotiated in the basic award are automatically applied to inhouse agreements. The employers want a series of plant agreements instead, which the union sees as an attempt to “smash” the national award. They believe the award’s clause 13, which allows second-tier agreements, is incompatible with the Labour Relations Act. The employers offered a written assurance that existing wages and conditions would be preserved if clause 13 was excluded, but the talks broke down when the union declined to accept. All other matters, including a flat pay increase of $24.13 a week, had been agreed to. The union had sought an increase of 8.6 per cent, while employers at first offered 7 per cent. The flat rate corresponds to 7 per cent for slaughtermen and up to 7.8 per cent for those on the lowest rates. The executive director of the Meat Industry Association, Mr Peter Blomfield, expressed "surprise and disappointment” at the breakdown. “We were extremely close to settlement but the union would not accept the written assurances we gave it protecting award rates and conditions and local productivity arrangements,” he said. Clause 13 was not consistent with the terms of the Labour Relations Act, allowing only one set of negotiations to arrive at an agreement to cover each set of workers, said Mr Blomfield. The national secretary of the Meat Workers’ ‘Union, Mr Jack Scott, said that the employers had been “very foolish.” “All they want to do is remove section 1-3 and destroy the award,” he said.

Mr Scott believed that employers could not protect section 13 agreements if the clause were scrapped, in spite of their assurances.

“Mr Blomfield is only the executive director of the Meat Industry Association, not a judge in the Labour Court. He does not know if section 13 is enforceable or not,” he said.