Four-Day Closing of Butchers' Shops

Chronicle (Levin), 19 January 1948, Page 4

Four-Day Closing of Butchers' Shops

Prptesting against the 1 action which the Wellington Master Butchers' Association proposes to take In clpsing the Wellington butchers' • shops for ,a four-day period during next weekend, the Levin "branch secretary. of the Wellington Abattoirs Union, Mr. J. P. Huston, stated today that the holiday .would inflict unneeessary hardship upon the public. He refuted the suggestion that it would not be possible to obtain . suffic'ient supplies of meat to reopen the shops on Friday. "If the shops opened oii- Friday, we would be able- to handle sufflcient stock in. the Levin abat'toirs during reasoriable- working hours. Normaliy we woi'k our week from Sun'day to Thursday. ' •' . "We maintain that the Welling- . ton butchers have a moral. obliga- ) - tion to opeen their shops on Friday, just as we have a moral obligation to work a-full week. In consideration of the people of Wellington, we strongly protest against this step." During the Christmas .and New Year holidays, continued Mr. Huston, when there had been no alternatiye but to do the work in a short time, all the killings for the city had been done at the Levin abattoirs. « To carry out the master butchers' decision, the abattoir stafif would have to work excessive overtime to supply the necessary meat. Had the shops been open on Friday, the work would have been carried out.in a normal week. •"In my opinion, there will be a definite short age of meat in Wellington during the weekend," he concluded. ' ■