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Union to recommend deal to Sealord workers

A union leader says big fishing company Sealord has agreed in principle to a new collective employment agreement at its Vickerman St processing plant at Port Nelson."We will be recommending a new collective agreement to members that has effectively a

NZPA
Fri, 29 Oct 2010

A union leader says big fishing company Sealord has agreed in principle to a new collective employment agreement at its Vickerman St processing plant at Port Nelson.

"We will be recommending a new collective agreement to members that has effectively a two-and-a-half year term," said a Service And Food Workers Union assistant national secretary at the union, Neville Donaldson.

The union has 280 members working for Sealord, among the 310 processing staff at Nelson.

He said that Sealord executives had been looking for "clawbacks" on terms and conditions for both current workers and the starting conditions for new workers, until it announced in September that a further review had shown a long-term viable future for the factory.

"This was a change of heart for the company," Mr Donaldson told NZPA. "The change of mind brought about a change of attitude to the bargaining".

He declined to detail the offer which will go to members over the next couple of weeks for ratification, or to speculate on the reasons for the company's change of heart.

Sealord -- half-owned by a Japanese multinational, and Maori shareholders -- had been trying to save $1.8 million in annual labour costs in Nelson, saying if costs could not be cut it would be cheaper to close the plant and process fish in factory ships at sea.

In March last year Sealord confirmed the disestablishment of the Nelson plant's wet fish night shift, with the loss of around 120 jobs. In December, company executives said they were offering a 2.5 percent increase through the Service And Food Workers Union.

Sealord said during bargaining that failure to alter the contract terms threatened the viability of the Nelson operation, while the union argued that proposed changes would make it impossible for workers to earn a living wage.

But today Mr Donaldson said there was likely to be little or no reduction in immediate earnings for workers, and an increase over the term of the agreement.

Sealord chief executive Graham Stuart this month said that the past hoki season had been better than hoped for. The fishery was in good shape and that advantage had flowed through the factory, "so it was a good season."

Sealord's corporate headquarters is in Auckland, which is also the base for its New Zealand retail marketing business, but Nelson is its main processing site, where it has fish, coated products and shellfish processing plants. Sealord is part-owner of a joint venture mussel processing plant in Tauranga and an inshore fishing business based in Greymouth, on the West Coast.

NZPA
Fri, 29 Oct 2010
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Union to recommend deal to Sealord workers
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