Union Reacts To Japanese Report

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30978, 7 February 1966, Page 14

Union Reacts To Japanese Report

(New Zealand Press Association) HAMILTON, February 6. The Dairy Workers’ Union will approach the Dairy Board and the Ministers of Agriculture and Overseas Trade, Messrs Taiboys and Marshall, to discuss the provision of white uniforms for dairy factory workers.

The secretary of the union, Mr S. I. Wheatley, of Hamilton, said that to improve the standard of hygiene in the industry, the union wanted employers to provide white uniforms instead of the present “clumsy overalls.”

There had been wide reaction to this week’s report about the feeling of the Japanese trade union visitors to New Zealand that hygiene should be improved by the provision of better clothing for dairy workers. Mr Wheatley said the union was in full agreement with the Japanese officials that the dairy industry should pay more attention to the supply of better clothing to the workers. He said the Japanese had no criticism of the New Zealand dairy workers and remarks they made about cloth-

ing applied to the industry, not its employees. “However, on Tuesday,” said Mr Wheatley, “a representative of a dairy company made a statement to them, that Japanese dairy workers only wore masks and head-dress under compulsion and particularly only when visitors were present "This caused some excited comment in Japanese and finally brought out an emphatic denial that such was the case. “The Japanese later informed us that Japanese dairy workers wear and are supplied with white shirts, trousers, gloves, masks and hats. “Furthermore, the policing of the wearing of such apparel is strictly enforced at all times by representatives of the union employed in each factory,” he said.