FREEZING WORKS DISPUTE.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 November 1926, Page 8

FREEZING WORKS DISPUTE.

The offer of the freezing companies to join with the employees in an application to the Arbitration Court for a new award has very effectively “called tire bluff'' of those unionists, who maintained that the rates of pay under the existing award were unfair to certain of the workers, and that on this account a refusal to work under the award was justified. It is satisfactory £o note that the general secretary of the Employees’ Association has signified that body’s intention of meeting the companies in conference next Wednesday with a view to an amicable settlement of the points in dispute. There is little doubt but that the action of certain works in continuing operations successfully with volunteer labour, and the preparation of others for doing likewise, has induced a more reasonable frame of mind amongst the unionists, and in stipulating as a condition upon which the companies will join the employees in a fresh appeal to the Arbitration Court, that such volunteers shall retain their positions if they so desire, the employers are being only fair to those who assisted in keeping the wheels of the industry moving at a critical moment. It is to be hoped that Wednesday’s conference will see the end of a trouble which ought never to have arisen had the unionists shown any regard for their obligation to respect an award of the court to which they were parties, and which the employers had strictly conformed with.