The 270 workers at the Carter Holt Harvey mill, members of the Engineering, Printing, and Manufacturing Union, walked off the job March 7 and set up a 24-hour picket line to protest a concession contract proposed by the company. The previous contract expired two years ago.

Key to the dispute is the company’s demand to scrap the current seniority provisions governing job assignments and promotion, and to replace the specialized firefighting unit by assigning other workers to carry out these duties on top of doing their own jobs--a move that would seriously compromise safety standards.

Carter Holt Harvey, which is reportedly losing NZ$500,000 (NZ$1 = US$0.54) per day through the strike, has been using the time to perform its annual plant maintenance, usually carried out through a shutdown with the workers on paid leave.

As the strike entered its second month, pressure mounted on the company from fruit exporters it normally supplies with packaging. The company ordered paper on site to be moved out by rail. When train drivers were threatened with court action if they refused to cross the picket line, the strikers decided not to enforce it at this stage. Some paper has also been moved out by truck. As supplies run out, the company is seeking to import packaging to supply the fruit industry, which is heading into peak season.

With negotiations stalled, workers are noting the tough stance management is taking. "The main agenda is to break the union," said John Wallace, a union delegate, in an interview with the Militant.

The stakes in the dispute for the bosses were spelled out in an opinion column by business writer Jim Eagles in the April 14 New Zealand Herald. Describing the dispute as "one the company has to win," he said, "It is probably--hopefully--the last sign of the Jurassic age of industrial relations that was swept away elsewhere years ago." The Kinleith site will not achieve its potential, he claimed, if "industrial dinosaurs continue to dominate the site and hamstring its development."

The strikers hold weekly meetings, and union officials have been visiting work sites around the country and in Australia to win support. As a result of donations from fellow unionists here and overseas, each striker receives weekly grocery vouchers, and extra food as well. Some strikers are replying to the personal letters they have been receiving from the company, threatening to close the mill, with their own letters asking why the company is refusing to talk.

While the strike has received little coverage in the big-business press, the TV documentary program Sunday ran an item April 7, with a preamble describing the Kinleith strikers as some of the highest-paid workers in New Zealand. Senior production delegate James "Whiskey" Hastie took exception to this on the program, stating, "Our forefathers are what have got us our conditions now, and my job is to try and retain that and to bring other people at a lower standard up to those sort of conditions--for my children and their children. Otherwise corporate greed will just take, take, take, and they’ll end up with nothing."

Meanwhile Carter Holt Harvey chief executive Peter Springford reported April 16 a net first quarter profit of $51 million, up from $17 million for the same period last year. He said the company will hold "as long as it takes" to win the dispute.

Felicity Coggan is a sewing machine operator and member of the National Distribution Union.  
 
 
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