Strikes flare, ebb, more threatened

Press, 10 April 1979, Page 3

Strikes flare, ebb, more threatened

The breweries dispute flowed into related industries yesterday as softdrink, winery, and distillery bottlers in’ Christchurch, Hamilton, and Taranaki voted to strike for three days from today. Auckland workers will hold a vote on strike action this morning. The stoppages are in protest against the suspension of hundreds of brewery workers last Friday, reports the Press Association. Most breweries were forced to stop production 10 days ago when boiler attendants struck in support of their claim for an 8c an hour disability allowance. Brewery workers continued cleaning and maintenance last week until hundreds received suspension notices and others went on indefinite strike in sympathy. The boiler attendants will vote today on a return to work, after the parties met in Auckland yesterday before an Industrial Conciliator, Mr F. Gerbic. Workers at the Canterbury N.Z. Malting Company will meet at 7.45 a.m. today to discuss possible action. Yeast workers will also meet today. Any action by these two industries would depend on how soon their processing plants could be stopped, said the national secretary of the Allied Liquor Trades Union (Mr K. Glendening). Mr Glendening said that workers were not trying to sabotage the brewery process. Malting and yeast manufacturing took a long time to start and stop, he said. The brewery workers will meet again next Tuesday. Storemen and packers will meet in Christchurch this afternoon to discuss progress on their negotiations over an allowance of 15 cents an hour for handling dangerous goods. The Canterbury secretary of the Storemen and Packers’ Union (Mr P. E. Piesse) flew to Auckland on Sunday to participate in negotiations with the employers. He will address today’s meeting in Christchurch. It is believed that an agreement was reached yesterday between storemen and freight-forwarding companies on withdrawing the

e allowance, according to the i- Press Association. While no official cony firmation was immediately i, available in Wellington, the i- Minister of Labour (Mr Bols ger) said that he believed ;- agreement had been reached, a The Government last week threatened to pass reguJations to cancel the agreei ment if it was not annulled y by the parties in Auckland, s Hawke’s Bay, and Cantert bury-Westland, but Mr 801-0 0 ger delayed implementing 0 the regulations until after s yesterday's meetings. r Drivers of long-haulage ~ refrigerated trucks, who rey turned to work in Christg church yesterday afternoon, t will meet on Thursday after conciliation talks have rgs sumed in Wellington. n About -30 drivers returned to work at 2.30 p.m. after a , four-week strike over their ’ claim for an extra week’s ’ annual leave. * They agreed to go back to ’ work and await the results • of conciliation talks which will resume tomorrow. A breakdown in the talks f would not necessarily mean f a resumption of the strike, ■ said the Canterbury Drivers’ 5 Union secretary (Mr P. R. Liggett). 5 Mr Liggett said that if the a result of that meeting was ’ not satisfactory Christchurch 1 drivers would follow the e recommendation of the 1 Drivers’ Federation that they approach individual comt panies to negotiate the claim 0 locally. i_ Drivers in other centres t returned to work at inidg night on Sunday, but Wei-

lington drivers went back on strike early yesterday. The strike restarted at the Refrigerated Freight Lines Tawa depot. A Drivers’ Federation spokesman, Mr R. Campbell, said that the strike had been resumed because of a statement by an employers’ spokesman at the week-end that although the employers would attend a meeting with federation officials tomorrow, no changes would be made to an earlier offer by refrigerated freight firms. Another reason for the resumed strike was a decision by Refrigerated Freight Lines’ management not to proceed with an agreement to meet the company’s drivers’ delegates yesterday to discuss negotiation of a house agreement. Pulp and paper workers at the Tasman Pulp and Paper Company and Caxton Paper Mill, Kawerau, will stop work on Friday for 24 hours unless management comes forward with new proposals, the workers’ federation’s secretary, Mr J. Murphy, said yesterday. Thirteen unions have negotiated wage claims with the company, but when no agreement was reached last week the talks were adjourned to April 26. However, the Northern Pulp and Paper Workers’ Federation is not participating in the talks. Mr Murphy said that members had rejected company proposals and would stop work on Good Friday unless progress was made on their claims by April 12.