GIRLS PROTEST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 February 1941, Page 9

GIRLS PROTEST

| AGAINST WORKING CONDITIONS. ! HOLD UP AT WESTFIELD. I (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND. February 19. | Some 200 girls employed in the cani nery department at the Westfield freezing works ceased work at noon today as a protest against their working conditions. They held a meeting which lasted about two hours and resumed work at 3 p.m. on the understanding that their grievances would be brought before the management by the works delegates of the Auckland Freezing Workers’ Union. No official statement was made on behalf of the girls, but it is slated that there has been an acceleration of canning plant recently and the girls complain that the speed is too exhausting and that they cannot keep pace with the increased rate of output aimed at. Commenting on the stoppage, the manager at Westfield. Mr. A. G. Ridley, said the girls stopped work with only two minutes’ notice to the foreman and left some cans unsterilised and others with meat in unsealed. They resumed work without any explanation whatever.

There has been slight acceleration recently, he said, but it had had no appreciable effect on the output. This was in no way the fault of the girls, however, as a number of new members of the staff were being trained.