STRIKE IN AUCKLAND.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2752, 5 March 1910, Page 5

STRIKE IN AUCKLAND.

SLAUGHTERMEN'S ASSISTANTS ‘•GO OUT.”

[Per Press Association.] AUCKLAND, March 4. Some time ago a deadlock occurred at the South Down works of the Auckland Farmers’ Freezing Company through the refusal of floor hands assisting the slaughtermen to go on with tlieir work unless paid higher wages. The disaffected hands were not highskilled workmen and the seriousness of their refusal to work lay in the fact that it would be impossible for the slaughtermen to go on with their work unless their assistants could be persuaded to do the subsidiary work. Accordingly an effort was made by the management to get the men to go on with their duties until the matter in dispute could be settled in a proper legal way. At a conference before the Conciliation Commissioner their effort was successful and the men went back to work until yesterday, when the dispute was referred to a conference of representatives from the men and the employers with the Commissioner (Air V. Harle Giles) in the chair. This conference lasted from 7.30 p.m. until midnight and in the end effected noMiing. The point of difference upon which the parties failed to agree was that relating to preference to unionists. To-day the men went on strike. Theirdemands are for more wages and preference to Unionists. These, arc concessions which the Company are not at present prepared to grant. The employers’ representatives were given no inkling at the conference last night that a strike was likely to eventuate this morning, but when the whistle blow for the hands to resume the slaughtermen’s assistants came to the works as usual and refused to “turn to” unless they were granted the concessions they had tried unsuccessfully to get at the conference. The strike lias occurred at a most inopportune time for the Company and for graziers. The freezing season is now at its height and farmers and export buyers have •hooked space in the freezing chambers for stock to be killed and exported. If the strike continues all those arrangements will be upset and the seriousness of the position can he readily realised. So far the men have not moderated their demands and the Company are not prepared to recede from the position they have taken with regard to thorn.