Iwi leaders make the difference

A bitter industrial dispute which threatened a Northland town's future is over, with iwi and community support credited with ending the impasse.

At 5am on Tuesday, following all-night talks, the two sides in the three-month-long dispute signed an agreement paving the way for about 110 union members locked out of Moerewa's Affco freezing works to return to work.

The breakthrough came after leaders of the country's biggest iwi - including Ngapuhi's Sonny Tau - "knocked a few heads together" to get Affco's owners, the Talley brothers of Motueka, talking with officials from the Meat Workers Union (MWU).

Concerned about the hardships faced by Moerewa's mainly Maori workforce, Mr Tau had earlier threatened to call on Maori farmers across the North to stop sending stock to Affco plants.

As of late last week about 110 workers were still locked out at Moerewa, with a further 24 on strike. The total number of union members locked out of the eight Affco plants across the North Island is disputed, with the figures ranging from 450 to 800. The same applies to the number of workers on strike.

All were back on the payroll as of Tuesday morning. They are expected to return to work this week.

Affco is by far the largest employer in Moerewa, a town of about 1500 people which has been hard hit by timber mill and dairy factory closures. A failure to settle the dispute would have sounded a death knell for the town, which in recent years had just started to recover from earlier setbacks.

Both sides have made concessions in the agreement. Workers' wages and job security will be protected, with their terms and conditions negotiated by the union; Affco, on the other hand, has won greater workforce flexibility.

The agreement came on the same day the union's challenge to the legality of the lockout was to have wrapped up in Auckland Employment Court. All legal action has now been halted.

Resolution of the bitter and costly dispute has been welcomed by company director Andrew Talley, the Meat Workers Union and the Iwi Leaders Forum.

The big challenge now facing Moerewa's freezing workers will be getting back to work without tensions from the 85-day-long lockout boiling over.

Moerewa MWU shed secretary Laurie Nankivell said the big challenge now was getting everyone back to work without any lasting issues from the dispute.

"We have to patch up our differences. We don't want anyone losing their jobs now," he said.

The company and the union have procedures for dealing with tensions between workers who had been on opposite sides of the dispute. Mr Nankivell said the agreement was a positive outcome for both sides.

"There's also a commitment to work together to solve our differences, and to be more transparent with each other."

Without the iwi leaders on board the dispute might not have been settled. Mr Tau had a deep understanding of the issues because he had been a union affiliate at the Moerewa freezing works.

Mr Nankivell said the workers were thankful for the support they had received.

"We're grateful for everything people have done - the food, the donations, joining in the march, even just beeping their horns."

 He said he was looking forward to going back to work and 6am starts, instead of the 4am starting time for the pickets.