Union organiser proud of service

Press, 4 April 1989, Page 42

Union organiser proud of service

PA Auckland A union leader, Mr Harold Callagher, who retired yesterday, says he is proud that while he has been in office his members have never been on strike.

“I have managed to be able to negotiate the problems for my members,” said Mr Callagher, aged 68.

“The greatest satisfaction I got was out of negotiation and advocacy. At one stage I was negotiating as many as 40 awards and agreements a year.” Mr Callagher, New Zealand’s longest-serving fulltime union secretary, has been gradually relinquishing his duties in recent years. In his time he has been secretary to six unions. Today he gives up the reins as secretary of the Biscuit and Confectionery and Related Trades Union after 24 years. Recently he retired as secretary of the Northern Launderers, Dyers and Dry Cleaners’ Union, which he represented for 41 years, and from the Auckland Fish Trade Employees’ Union, after 38 years.

From 1971 to 1985 he was secretary of the Northern Journalists’ Union and of the Legal Employees’ Union. He also represented the Auckland and Suburbs Local Body Labourers and Related Trades for 28 years. In the late 1960 s and early 1970 s he was secretary of the Auckland Trades Council and a national councillor of the Federation of Labour.

Mr Callagher had a reputation for negotiating pay deals with fringe benefits. He did not think that the 1987 Labour Relations Act, which requires that unions must have at least 1000 members, was in the interests of smaller groups of workers. “It is not my personal view that the legislation will be to the advantage of the small, clear-cut groups who have managed to retain their identity up to the present and in many cases negotiate very good awards and agreements,” he said. “There is a possibility of them being swamped in a bigger union if the trend overseas is anything to go by.”