For more than five weeks some 1,000 workers refused to start the lamb killing season at New Zealand's largest sheep and lamb processing plant under the onerous contract proposed by the company.

The company's original demands added up to what a local newspaper, the Southland Times, called "a drastic shift" in workers' wages and conditions on the job. The Alliance Group proposed to operate the plant with three chains (lines) working three 10-hour shifts, keeping the plant open around the clock six days a week and increasing the kill rate from 3,500 sheep and lambs in an eight-hour shift, to 5,000 in 10 hours.

The bosses also wanted the workers to take a 4.5 percent wage cut and to agree to merging seniority lists between workers from Lorneville and the closed plant at nearby Makarewa.

This is the first season shift work has been introduced for workers on the slaughterboard (kill floor) at Alliance meat processing plants. In May last year workers at the nearby Mataura plant accepted management proposals and started on shifts this season. A worker leaving that plant said the union struggle at Lorneville "goes to show you don't have to accept what management tells you."

In a series of meetings over December and January, the workers, members of the New Zealand Meat Workers Union, let the bosses know their opposition to the measures. After a meeting January 6, some 1,000 workers marched on the Alliance Group's head office in Invercargill to deliver what the Southland Times described as "a resounding no" to the company's proposals.

Work began after the company agreed to run four chains over two eight-hour shifts for five days a week, with Saturday morning work if required. The eight-hour shift maintains the 3,500 kill rate, which can increase to 4,000 in nine hours without overtime pay when required.

Most workers see this arrangement as an important concession by the company. Charlie Hay said in an interview that the union "came out stronger than the company." After only a week on the job a night-shift worker explained, "It is not over yet. The company is already trying to renege on things."

The company also dropped its plans to merge the seniority lists, despite the fact that a government employment tribunal had endorsed the move. It also backed off its threatened wage cut, although final wage levels remain to be settled between the company and the union. Workers explained there was an average 2.25 percent pay cut which varies according to department.  
 
 
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