Strike over redundancies

Press, 5 July 1983, Page 8

Strike over redundancies

About 80 workers at the i Woolston factory of A. and i T. Burt, Ltd, went on strike I yesterday in a dispute over i a redundancy agreement for i 12 engineers. S The company has told the i 12 engineers that it no 1 longer needs them to pro- 1 duce its range of Siesta f wood-burning heaters. r It has offered to pay them 1

in line with the Government’s redundancy regulations, but the engineers and members of the Boilermakers’, Plumbers and Storemen’s and Packers’ unions voted by secret ballot yesterday to strike until the company agrees to follow a redundancy agreement applying to its sprinkler division.

The regulations provide for a maximum of four weeks pay, plus two weeks pay for each year of service. The sprinkler division agreement provides for six weeks pay, plus two weeks for each year of service, and it also provides for redundancy pay for those with less than six months service.

A spokesman at the company’s head office in Lower Hutt said that the redundancies did not mean that the company was ceasing production of its Siesta heaters.

Clyde dam site agreement negotiations would not resume until certain conditions are met by the jointventure contractors, ZublinWilliamson, the combined private trades union decided at a meeting in Dunedin yesterday. The meeting was called to consider tentative* resumption dates of today and Thursday, but this was rejected. The negotiations ended five weeks ago with agreement to reassess the respective positions of the company and the unions during the following month.