Tourist hotels hit by walk-out

Press, 8 March 1989, Page 7

Tourist hotels hit by walk-out

By

DAVID CLARKSON

Christchurch’s tourist hotels are the hardest hit by a walk-out by hotel workers angry at the breakdown of their four-month-long award talks.

Hotel employers have labelled the five-day Canterbury strike futile, but the union said yesterday the spontaneous action was a measure of their members’ anger. The Canterbury Hotel Association’s delegate on the employers’ panel for the award talks, Mr Martin Fuller, said the tourist hotels had been the worst affected by the strike. Not all staff had walked out, and the hotels were continuing to provide limited facilities, he said. “I think that when the strikers see there has only been limited support they will query the wisdom of their actions,” Mr Fuller said. Hotel restaurants and bars throughout the city were closed to casual guests as strike action by workers took effect. At the Parkroyal Hotel one bar remained open and breakfast was provided for house guests. A duty manager, Mr Gary Munro, said guests had to make their own arrangements for dinner last evening. Mr Munro said the hotel was considering arranging a buffet for hotel

patrons this evening. At the Quality Inn, Durham Street, patrons were still able to eat in the hotel restaurant, although the restaurant would remain closed to casual guests while strike action continued, a duty manager, Andrea Manson said. At Noahs Hotel bars and restaurants were open to house guests only. The hotel manager, Mr John Clarke, said one restaurant was open but "basically it is business as usual.” Hotel bars would remain open for house guests, said Mr Clarke. The secretary of the Canterbury Hotel, Hospital, and Restaurant Workers’ Union, Ms Lianne Dalziel, said the union had not counted heads at the meeting held yesterday morning to report to members on the breakdown of the award talks, which have been going since November.

The union did not recommend strike action, but the motion came from the floor and received strong support.

Ms Dalziel said there were more than 250 union members at the meeting,

but the advocate for the employers, Mr Paul Bell, said they believed the meeting was only about half that size. Ms Dalziel said the union wanted to work closely with the employers to discuss changes that might be needed through the present review of the liquor laws. “The way to achieve change is not by simply making demands. It is through a process of negotiation. We don’t believe we have been given that opportunity. “We have suggested to employers that these issues are negotiable provided we can write in some enforceable protection for full-time workers and present part-time workers,” she said. She said the employers had “made a mockery of our position.” Mr Bell said the union had been concerned about the proposal to allow workers to elect to work four 10-hour days, in spite of guarantees that there would be protection written in, and no employer pressure.

The change would allow

employers to get by without some casual staff. The union was also resisting the employers’ call to allow more casual staff in an industry that was already more than 50 per cent “casualised,” he said. A large percentage of the workforce now only wanted part-time work because it suited their lifestyle or their other work commitments, he said. The employers are also seeking the ability to work part-time staff on split shifts, while still restricting the spread of hours and paying of a split shift allowance. No further talks are planned, but stop-work meetings will be held in other centres in the next few days. Ms Dalziel said the union had made it clear that if individual employers wished to have their staff remain at work they could make offers of a 4 per cent unconditional wage settlement. Several approaches had. been received, and they would probably be considered site-by-site today.