Union stopworks to follow breakdown of talks

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Hundreds of manufacturers face a blast of old-fashioned industrial disruption after a breakdown in negotiations to renew the key metals multi-employer agreement.

The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union will today start a round of stopwork meetings at 43 companies that were original parties to the failed talks, and plans to broaden its campaign from there.

It announced on Friday, after calling its entire northern industrial staff to a planning session in Auckland, an intention to issue 14 days' notice of major stopwork meetings of members.

Union negotiators caused a stir among employers at the opening of negotiations last week by seeking a 5 per cent pay rise, a shorter working week and longer tea breaks.

By Thursday night, bargaining was at a standstill. The union rejected what is understood to have been an offer to meet it halfway on pay, although without any concessions on working hours.

Union secretary Andrew Little will not disclose figures before discussing these with members, but said the amount offered was below average private-sector wage rises, which he put at 2.8 per cent.

The metals agreement is the largest multi-employer document in the private sector, traditionally directly covering more than 2000 employees of 200 firms, and the union says it influences the pay and conditions of thousands more workers.

Mr Little said its importance should not be underestimated and "we are not going to accept a mean settlement".

It has been settled without any noticeable drama in each of the past 10 years, but mass meetings of workers to sign off the latest pay claims prompted National to warn of industrial muscle-flexing under planned law changes to bolster multi-employer bargaining.