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CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — Meat workers are resisting a serious attack on their wages and working conditions by two of the biggest meat-processing companies in New Zealand. The Primary Producers Cooperative Society (PPCS) and the Alliance Group have announced plans to increase their production by imposing shiftwork and speedup at their South Island plants. Both companies recently posted a sizeable drop in profits, after two years of drought in regions throughout the South Island severely curtailed the number of stock for slaughter.

In August the Alliance Group announced that it would introduce shiftwork slaughtering into its plants over the next two years. The bosses propose 10-hour shifts, with each worker putting in a four-day week, and increasing the kill from 3,500 sheep and lambs in an eight-hour day to 5,000 in 10 hours. The company also announced the end of sheep processing at its Makarewa plant near Invercargill and the merging of the Makarewa workforce into the nearby Lorneville plant. This plant, with the continuous shift system in operation, would be able to process 180,000 lambs a week. Another South Island plant is to be closed.

In response, PPCS, the Alliance Group's main competitor, has also proposed to increase production and introduce shiftwork slaughtering into its plants. Instead of lengthening the working day, PPCS, wants to increase the speed of the production lines from 8.3 carcasses per minute to 10 per minute. It also closed down three production lines at its Canterbury and Fairton plants, laying off more than 300 workers.

The lamb-killing season is now under way, but neither company has been able to put their proposals into effect due to the opposition of the workers. Meetings of workers at the six PPCS plants have rejected the increased kill, and in particular the speed up. In response, PPCS informed the Meat Workers Union December 20 that they would start up one of the closed production lines at its Canterbury plant in the new year.

On December 12 a combined meeting of the Makarewa and Lorneville workers voted to reject the wages and hours the Alliance Group is trying to impose as part of the shift system. Although the workers' stand has meant that the Lorneville plant will not start before Christmas, Otago/Southland Meat Workers Union secretary Gary Davis noted that they were fighting for the longer term. "The wages and conditions we are talking about are for our futures, not just this Christmas but for the next 10 or 20." Workers are concerned that the faster work pace and longer shifts will increase the already high rate of repetitive motion and other injuries. Many workers are also concerned that the increased kill will lead to a shorter season, possibly as little as 12 weeks work, for many workers who are normally employed from December through May.  
 

Florida tomato pickers strike for higher wages

A couple of dozen farm workers joined a December 17 overnight bus ride from Immokalee to the state capital, Tallahassee, for a rally to demand Gov. Jeb Bush to help bring the growers to the negotiating table.

From the first day of the struggle here the growers have received the support of the local police. CIW protest organizer Greg Asbed was detained by police at 7:00 a.m. December 13, and three farm workers were arrested when they came to his defense. All have since been released. As of December 18, only the charges against Asbed have been dropped.

Ray Gilmer, a spokesperson for the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, claims that area growers have not experienced a shortage of workers in the fields as a result of the farmworkers' campaign. But farmworkers Guadalupe Artiaga Torres, Rigoberto Mesa Ortiz, and José Luis Sorriano say that in fact about half the work force has stayed off the job.

"We shouldn't have to live like this going into the next millennium," said Artiaga, who has picked tomatoes for three years. Workers receive 45 cents for a 32-pound bucket, and are demanding a raise to 75 cents. The growers have been selling a 25-pound box on the market for $7.50 this fall, and for as much as $11.88 per box last year at this time.

Mesa, a seven-year veteran of the south Florida fields, said that working hard at this rate brings him $280 per week before taxes.

Many of the farmworkers in Immokalee are women. Sorriano emphasized the point that they are playing a leading role in the struggle. "The women fight hard, and they work hard," he said.

Soledad Hernández has been picking tomatoes for one year in Immokalee, and related that she had never been part of a struggle like this before. But the wages are so low, she said, that "we have to fight. I have no choice." She said working conditions are also an issue—sometimes the pesticides dropped on the crops are so powerful that workers have to leave the fields.

The current stage of the farm workers' fight began in 1995, when the growers tried to cut pay to $3.85 per hour, less than the minimum wage. Workers responded with a strike that defeated the threatened cutback and won gains in the tomato picking piece rate. Since then there have been hunger strikes and other protests that have forced the growers to negotiate and scored some victories.

Sorriano, who has spent 14 years as a farmworker here, draws on his experience before coming to the United States as unionist in a textile plant in his native Mexico. He said that workers will "need a union" in Immokalee to advance their fight and win solidarity from fellow workers, whether in the factories or in the fields.  
 

Metalworkers strike to defend union

The employers, Arigo and Jos Cicarelli, refuse to recognize the union as the sole bargaining agent for the workers and want to establish a lower rate of pay for new hires who do exactly the same work as those already hired. The workers recently decided to leave the Steelworkers union and become part of the Metallurgy federation of the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN).

During a visit to the strike headquarters, located across from the factory, Militant reporters talked to workers, whose wages range between Can$8.50 and Can$17 an hour (Can$1=US$0.67). Before the strike, workers said, the bosses were refusing to respect seniority and were giving individual increases to workers. The workers are demanding a raise of 12 percent over three years, posted job bids, and seniority rights. According to Mariano Ariete, the union president, "In the past we have accepted a wage freeze in good faith. The 12 percent that we are demanding today is only the wage catch-up that we feel we have the right to."

At a conciliation session November 30, the bosses refused to budge. According to the strikers, the bosses are sending a certain amount of work to subcontractors. They are building a new factory at Varennes for a cost of Can$15 million.

As part of their efforts to force the employer to negotiate, workers have participated in a series of demonstrations at the factory and elsewhere. On December 15 they rallied in front of the Employers Council officers in downtown Montreal.

Stuart Needham, a member of the Meat Workers Union at PPCS in Canterbury, New Zealand; Mike Italie in Miami; and Joe Young, a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 501 in St. Blaise-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, contributed to this column.  
 
 
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