FARMERS TO MAN KILLING BOARDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 32, 30 April 1927, Page 12

FARMERS TO MAN KILLING BOARDS

BUTCHERS AT SOUTH OTAGO PAID OFF AS RESULT OF DISPUTE Press Association DUNEDIN. Friday. Following a dispute with the management of the South Otago Freezing Company, the butchers have all been paid off. Addressed at the saleyards by one of the directors, the assembled farmers of the district endorsed a scheme that they themselves should man the boards till the end of the season. Trouble developed among the butchers at the Finegand freezing works near Balclutha yesterday. The men insisted on a butcher being employed who ha,d come from Burnside, but had not previously been working at Finegand. The manager objected, and the men presented an ultimatum to-day. The directors of the South Otago Freezing Company held a meeting at the works in the morning, and the result was that the men were informed that if they did not reconsider their attitude they would all be paid off at 1 o’clock. This the butchers refused to do, and accordingly they were paid off. In the afternoon at the saleyards Mr. John Christie, Balclutha, one of the directors, addressed the assembled farmers and made an appeal for volunteer labour to man the killing board till the end of the season. The farmers who were present endorsed the stand taken by the directorate, and it is thought that there will be little difficulty experienced in carrying on. Mr. Christie stated that everything had been working so smoothly at the works, the relationship between the workers and the management being all that could be desired, that the demand made by the butchers came “like a bolt from the blue"; but the directors were determined not to be dictated to in that manner. If the men had a real grievance, the directors would have been only too pleased to remedy it. but the management objected to being forced to employ a man against its wishes.