TALKS TODAY ON MILK DELIVERIES

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28260, 24 April 1957, Page 14

TALKS TODAY ON MILK DELIVERIES

Negotiations today between spokesmen for the Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Dairy Factories Employees’ Union and the Department of Labour may well decide whether milk will be delivered for Saturday consumption to thousands of Christchurch householders. •

Up to last night employees of the Christchurch Milk Company —operators of the largest milktreatment plant—were standing by their vote of last Thursday to refuse work for 24 hours from midnight this Thursday. From that date they will also refuse call-backs and overtime. This action was called for in a directive issued by the national executive of the union. The Auckland branch, of its own decision, is already working to the terms of that directive. Mr T. H. McCombs, chairman of the Christchurch Milk Company, said last evening that negotiations were still proceeding on a national level between the employers’ and employees’ assessors.

Mr P. L. C. Inder, secretary of Wright’s Metropolitan Milk Company, Ltd., said yesterday that he was astounded when he knew the basic rate the men were paid. “I don’t think they should have to work penal rates and overtime to make their wages up to a decent living amount,” he said. “I also feel that this is the view held by my directors. The basic rate seems very low compared with those applicable in most other industries.

“I am informed that the employees at our plant are prepared to carry on,” Mr Inder said. “There appears to be s.ome degree of panic by milk consumers, many of whom have asked if they can leave a double order for Friday delivery. Thousands of such orders would be impossible to fulfil.”

'Hie national directive to union branches is a sequel to the refusal of the. employees’ assessor to accept the 5s a weeks increase offered by the employers in Conciliation Council. The employees at the Dunedin milk-treatment plant, who voted yesterday in a secret ballot to ignore the national directive, receive a 5 per cent, profit-sharing bonus, which adds £3O to their wages each year. “Our men,” said Mr D. G. T. Beaumont, union delegate from the Christchurch Milk Company, last evening, “receive £9 5s a week, rising to £9 10s after 12 months, plus the 18 per cent, cost-of-living allowance, and 6s 6d in other allowances each week.”

His company believed that negotiations now proceeding would reach a satisfactory conclusion and ensure a continuation of the supply, said Mr Inder. One of the matters likely to be discussed at today’s conference will be the circumstances in which Thursday’s decision was taken at the Christchurch Milk Company’s plant.

It was not a secret ballot and was not supervised by an officer of the Department of Labour. A quick decision was sought by the management, and this it was given, according to one union spokesman.