STRIKE AT A FREEZING WORKS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 9157, Issue 9157, 5 March 1910, Page 2

STRIKE AT A FREEZING WORKS.

ASSISTANTS REFUSE TO WORK. (Per Pbess Association.) AUCKLAND, March 4. Some time ago a deadlock occurred at the Southdown works of the Auckland Farmers' Freezing Company through the refusal of the floor hands to assist the slaughtermen to go on with their work unless paid higher wages. The disaffected hands were not very important highskilled workmen, but the seriousness of their refusal to work lay in the fact that it would be impossible for the slaughtermen to go on unless their assistants could be persuaded to do the subsidiary work. Accordingly an effort was made by the management to get the men to go on with their duties until the matter in dispute could be settled in the proper legal way at a. conference before the Conciliation Commissioner. Their effort was successful, and the men went back until yesterday, when the dispute was referred to the conference of representatives from the men and the employers with the Commissioner (Mr T. Harlc Giles) in the chair. This conference lasted from 7.30 p.m. until midnight, and in the end effected nothing. Tho point of difference upon which the parties failed to agree was that relating to preference to unionists. To-day the men went on strike. Their demands are for more wages and proferenco to unionists. These are concessions which the company are not at present prepared to grant. The employers' representatives were given no inkling at the conference last night that a strike was likely to eventuate this morning, but when the whistle blew for the hands to resume the slaughtermen's assistants came to the work as usual, and refused to turn to unless they were granted the concessions which they had tried unsuccessfully to get at the conference. Tho strike has occurred at a most inopportune time for the company and for graziers. The freezing season is now at its hoight, and farmers and export buyers have booked space in the freezing chambers for stock to be killed and exported. If the strike continues all these arrangements will be upset, and the seriousness of the position can be readily realised. So far the men have not moderated their demands, and tho company are not prepared to recede from their position.