Protest march over meat industry action

Press, 13 February 1986, Page 2

Protest march over meat industry action

PA Invercargill Forty people, mostly women, marched through Invercargill yesterday to protest against industrial action in the meat industry.

The midday march was organised by two meat workers’ wives. The marchers left the city’s war memorial and moved quietly along Dee Street in twos and threes behind a single placard which said: “Protesting wife — send your bills to Mr Knox and Co.” Some of the women said they were apprenhensive about being publicly identified but were determined to go through with it.

Many of the women said later that they were disappointed at the small number of people who were prepared to march. Some of the women

feared that at least one Southland meat-process-ing plant was in its death throes and that “this would be the stoppage that breaks the camel’s back.” The women said that with the hardship being faced by many families who rely on meat industry pay packets, the apathy of those concerned was incredible.

If the stoppage continued beyond the weekend, many Southland families would be in a desperate financial state. They laid the blame for their predicament on the hierarchy of the Meat Workers’ Union and the Meat Industry Association, which had failed “abysmally” to resolve their differences.

However, the present dispute was between the employers and refrigeration engineers.