A Bone of Contention: Managerial Initiative vs Employer Association Regulation of the New Zealand Meat Industry, 1960–75

Michael Barry^*

A number of studies have explained the industrial relations dynamics of New Zealand's most important export sector by examining its turbulent pattern of disputation. Rather than focus on industrial disputes in isolation, this paper traces a series of organisational relationships that followed the production of meat - through processing, storage and shipping - from farmer to consumer. The main focus of the paper is the relationship between meat processing employers and their association officials. The paper explains why individual employers attempted to challenge association policies and why association officials attempted to regulate the behaviour of their recalcitrant affiliates. Set during a period of both product market and industrial relations transition, the paper demonstrates how association officials strove with mixed success to present a united front to the industry's powerful unions, preserve relativities between different groups of workers, contain operating costs, and, overall, regulate competition within the industry.
I believe that unless we are prepared to do something about unifying our ranks we are going to continue being the defensive party in the industrial war we are engaged in. We all have the power we need providing we have the common sense to act as a body and not allow ourselves to be picked off one by one. The requirements of business competition should not prevent us from acting in a unified manner in the industrial field, and I am firmly convinced that those who may think that this field can be used competitively will find their business under worker management in the long run.1
So wrote a frustrated F. Stanley of Alliance Freezing, a South Island processor, in a memorandum to the industrial association of New Zealand meat freezing companies in 1963. Stanley asked his fellow affiliates to consider ceding to their Association executives the power to resolve industrial disputes in all cases where the outcome threatened the interests of the industry's employers. He believed the Association could only bargain effectively if it had the power to enforce a complete stoppage of all works in a district as a means of resolving a dispute at a particular enterprise. While Association officials welcomed Stanley's views, many of his counterparts would have great difficulty accepting either his vision of collective bargaining or his sentiment for such a level of employer cohesion.	1
Introduction
The meat 'freezing' industry of the 1960s and 1970s ranked as New Zealand's largest sector of manufacturing and the country's most important source of foreign income. The industry contributed approximately 40 per cent to total export revenue and employed the largest number of workers of any sector of manufacturing. Despite the industry's significance, there remains no comprehensive survey of the activities of (and relationship between) meat industry employers and their representatives. A recent article by Curtis and Reveley provides a valuable insight into the inability of meat processors to adhere to a consistent policy to oppose the power of the meatworkers.2 The article examines the industrial relations implications of the role played by the Meat Producers Board in licensing export processors. This paper extends that analysis by examining the role played by other influential actors, such as the Meat Exporters Council and the Exports and Shipping Council. The paper also contextualises the relationship between the parties engaged in producing, processing and exporting meat by exploring the industrial relations implications of the introduction of new technology to meat processing from the 1960s.	2
Not surprisingly, the analysis of employment and industrial relations in New Zealand's most strike-prone industry has focused on the causes and manifestations of conflict at industry,3 region4 and enterprise levels.5 During the 1960s, 'meat freezing' disputes accounted for approximately 25 per cent of New Zealand's total number of stoppages and a greater percentage of days lost to industrial action.6 Nevertheless, the incidence of disputes occasioning lost time might have been even higher. A study examining the development of disputes procedures in meat processing reported that from the beginning of the 1960s, the parties increasingly resolved their disputes along constitutional lines. The study asserted that 'the increased use of the Disputes Committee may be a result of a declining ability or willingness of parties to settle their differences at the works level'.7 Remarkably, the study did not mention the undoubted efforts of the employer groups to encourage their members, and union officials, to process their grievances through the industry's formal disputes procedures. In 1967, the President of the employers' Joint Labour Committee (see below) gave testimony in support of these efforts when he happily reported that 'there is no doubt that the disputes procedure has a big bearing on the relatively quiet period we are having from industrial trouble'.8	3
What is worth remarking about the employer coordination apparent in this case is that it occurred at a time when New Zealand's heavily centralised arbitration system devolved to facilitate enterprise (or 'second tier') negotiations. This development gave strongly organised employees, such as those engaged in meat production, a key strategic advantage. As payments supplementary to the Arbitration system's basic wage became a greater proportion of overall earnings, studies of wage determination would observe a pattern of behaviour in which 'reputedly weak employers have occasionally been singled out as candidates for the application of union pressure. Once they have capitulated their concessions have then been used as the basis of wage claims by other bargaining groups'.9 Throughout the 1960s and 70s, representatives of meat processors spent much of their time engaged in efforts to see this practice avoided.	4
Studies that relegate employer coordination to the sidelines of industrial relations inquiry are consistent with the conventional antipodean wisdom of employer association formation and behaviour. While overseas observers regard employer associations as having pursued a range of objectives, exhibiting both active and passive behaviour,10 antipodean wisdom held that employer associations developed under systems of state-dominated compulsory arbitration that allowed these organisations very little room to demonstrate initiative.11 The closely related arbitration systems of Australia and New Zealand afforded registered unions the authority to call employers before independent tribunals that had the power to arbitrate industrial disputes and make binding industrial agreements (known in both countries as awards).12 As employer groups generally responded to union claims, they appeared primarily 'reactive' and otherwise 'inactive'.13 Yet, according to recent revisionist studies (in Australia), appearances may have been deceptive.14 The revisionists demonstrated how a simple dichotomy between 'initiative' and 'reactivity' may have failed to account for the difficulties associations faced and the strategies they adopted to coordinate their industrial relations objectives while maintaining unity among the often-divided interests of their affiliates. Associations may then have appeared reactive when they actively worked to ensure their members held the collective line. Such [re]activity guided officials of the industrial association of meat freezing companies as they sought to encourage affiliates to resist making individual concessions that threatened to undermine the employers' collective interests.	5
In addition to this specific revisionism, two more general problems emerge from assumptions of employer association passivity under heavily regulated systems of industrial relations such as those constructed in New Zealand and Australia (as well as parts of Europe, including Scandinavia). First, such assumptions tend to ignore the benefits that centralised wage determination provided particular groups of employers, including meat processors.15 As has been observed in the comparative industrial relations literature, employers, particularly in small countries with limited domestic markets, operating in highly-competitive product markets vulnerable to international trade, have sought to regulate bargaining on a multi-employer basis so as to 'take wages out of competition'.16 The development of centralised or corporatist bargaining structures facilitated more than it frustrated the objectives of these employers as it provided for standardisation without the need for an effective lockout weapon.17 As Hugh Clegg once observed, 'A cynic might suggest that they [the employers] preferred to be regulated by the state free of charge rather than go to the trouble of regulating themselves'.18	6
Second, despite facilitating pervasive regulation of industrial relations, the centralising features of the New Zealand compulsory arbitration system had, by the 1960s, begun to come under strain. More than any other single event, it was the decision of the Arbitration Court in 1968 to make a 'nil wage order' against the protestations of both union and employer advocates that destroyed much of the credibility of the New Zealand arbitration system and its centralised wage structure.19 This debacle secured the development of a more decentralised industrial relations system that had commenced at the beginning of the 1960s with the advent of discretionary over-award payments.20 Thus, changes within the formal arbitration system as well as the competitive nature of the export meat trade provided an obvious justification for an association of meat processors to attempt to rein in control of industrial relations under a coordinated bargaining framework.	7
This paper then examines the activities of meat processors during the 1960s and 1970s, when the New Zealand industry faced a series of competitive pressures arising from changes occurring within the export meat trade as well as those taking place within the industrial relations system. At this time, processors introduced new methods of production and new payment systems in order to reap the potential benefits of diversifying their products and exporting to new markets. As new technology changed the nature of work in ways that threatened to further disrupt an industry with an already turbulent pattern of industrial relations, the employer representatives strived, with mixed success, to constrain the initiatives of their affiliates in order to present a united front to the industry's powerful trade unions and to contain operating costs. In a market geared primarily towards exporting, these were not the only factors association officials needed to consider. As the paper explains, association bargaining strategy must be understood within the context of a broad set of interconnected organisational relationships that followed the production of meat from farmer to processor — through cold storage and transportation — to overseas consumer.	8
The Industry and its Employers
The sale of frozen carcass lamb to the United Kingdom formed the bulk of New Zealand's traditional meat trade since the first exports sailed on the Dunedin in 1882. From that point, New Zealand 'prospered as a sort of off-shore farm for industrialised Britain'.21 During the 1960s however processors begun to diversify their pattern of export production in response to a decline in the producers' share of the price of carcass meat and, importantly, as the prospect of the United Kingdom's movement into the European Economic Community threatened the industry's traditional prosperity.22 The New Zealand Meat Producers Board (see below) pioneered a process of export diversification by creating the Meat Export Development Company (Devco) as a trading instrument designed to penetrate the North American market. By the early-1970s, the industry had offset a major reduction in carcass lamb sales to the United Kingdom with carton boneless beef production to North America, as well as sales of mutton to Japan and lamb exports to alternative European destinations.23	9
For a country with a small and dispersed workforce, New Zealand meat processing firms employed very large numbers of workers. In the early-1960s, only four of 33 freezing works employed less than 300 workers, while by 1971, average plant labour had reached 646.24 Within a given season, employment varied considerably so that in 1972, for example, 'labour surge' amounted to 47.5 per cent.25 The length and peak of the season itself varied between the two islands, depending largely on the type of meat produced. The processing of lamb in the North Island and the north of the South Island occurred between November and July (peaking between December and January), while Southland and Otago enjoyed a shorter processing season. Beef processing occurred over a longer season and peaked later, between May and June. Freezing works spread widely across both islands yet tended to remain close to the coasts so that employers might obtain ready access to water, dispose of effluent and minimise transportation costs to ports.26 The structure of industry also showed strong signs of stability with few plant closures, although takeovers, mergers and acquisitions were not uncommon.	10
By the 1960s, an ownership pattern had emerged such that a small number of overseas-based firms operated a minority of processing plants and yet these firms enjoyed considerable influence in determining rates of killing and processing, and marketing to overseas consumers. These dominant firms were Thomas Borthwick and Sons (Borthwicks), W&R Fletcher (known as Vesteys) and the Co-operative Wholesale Society — all United Kingdom based — and the United States based Swift.27 Borthwicks, in particular, exercised considerable control over marketing and sales. According to then Borthwicks Chairman, P. Norman, it was by collecting 'brilliant statistical intelligence, painstakingly assembled from shipping information' that company officials were able to calculate the tonnage and destination of competitors' exports so as to maximise Borthwicks' marketing advantage.28 Key Borthwicks executives including Norman, and Secretary W. Mathieson, had relatively little involvement in industrial matters but, in order to maintain their marketing advantage, carefully and successfully maneuvered to establish themselves as Chairmen on bodies — such as the Freight Advisory Committee and Meat Exporters Council — that represented the processors' interests in matters of overseas trade. As will be shown, the dominant employers opposed the initiatives of the Producers Board in the areas of marketing and diversification, and resented the Board's control over export prices.29	11
The Employer Representatives
Seasonal and climactic variations and an obvious geographical division between New Zealand's north and south gave meat producers cause to form separate industry associations. These bodies were respectively the North Island Freezing Companies Association (NIFCA) and South Island Freezing Companies Association (SIFCA). The island associations joined forces for industrial relations purposes, under the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, as a registered union called the New Zealand Freezing Companies Industrial Union of Employers. Under the formal banner of this Union, the associations created a body known as the Joint Labour Committee (JLC) to co-ordinate nationally the employers' response to industrial relations developments. Formed in 1936, the JLC elected annually from the ranks of individual companies a President and Vice President and rotated these appointments between North and South Island members. The Secretaries of the North and South Island Associations shared the positions of JLC Secretary and Treasurer. As principal executive officer, the JLC Secretary became involved in any industrial dispute having national implications.30	12
The JLC performed a number of functions. It appointed assessors to Conciliation Council to represent employers in formal negotiations over changes to award wages and conditions. The JLC also elected representatives to the Freezing Industry Disputes Committee (FIDC), a body created to hear disputes not resolved by local delegates and works managers. The JLC liaised with government agencies such as the Department of Labour on safety and industrial relations issues and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries over matters related to hygiene and meat inspection. The Committee also lobbied the New Zealand Employers Federation and the peak Manufacturers Association. These representations sought to influence matters such as negotiations for pay rates adjustments for trades employees engaged in meat works that took place between unions and other employer associations. For example, carpenters employed at meatworks had their general rates determined in negotiations with the Master Builders Association. This negotiating structure reinforced the occupational foundation of New Zealand's system of compulsory arbitration that made individual employers party to a number of separate occupational awards. The direct parties retained the autonomy — an autonomy the unions attempted to exploit wherever possible — to negotiate 'over-award' payments, depending upon 'productivity levels, demand conditions for particular skill categories and the relative bargaining strength of unions and employers'.31	13
In 1971, export processors created their own national industrial relations association, the Meat Industry Employers Association (MIEA). Meanwhile, NIFCA and SIFCA continued to represent the employers' non-industrial interests. While still operating formally as the registered employers' union, the MIEA elected an Industrial Committee that incorporated regional groupings of representatives who were industrial officers or works managers employed at individual works.32 These representatives dealt with local disputes, within their regions. The MIEA and its Industrial Committee effectively superseded the JLC. Despite the appearance of devolution, MIEA rules firmly placed Association decisions within the hands of the industry's largest employers, with votes allocated on the basis of annual production.33 Further organisational developments followed until the mid-1970s. In 1971, the industry's larger exporters created for themselves the New Zealand Meat Exporters Council, leaving the smaller firms to represent themselves through an Independent Meat Exporters Association. Finally, in 1974, NIFCA and SIFCA disbanded as their members created a new association to handle all matters of employer interest, the New Zealand Freezing Companies Association (NZFCA). The MIEA became the division of this organisation handling industrial relations.	14
The key industrial relations objective of the JLC, and later the Industrial Committee of the MIEA, was to prevent individual freezing companies from making concessions that would place pressure on other firms to match prevailing conditions. To avoid precisely this problem, in 1963, members agreed 'That it is the policy of the New Zealand Freezing Companies Industrial Union of Employers that all disputes should be settled within the framework of the Freezing Workers Award'.34 This policy would guide the Association through a series of industrial disputes that sorely tested the cohesive resolve of individual processors during the following decade.	15
Interrelationships
It is difficult to understand the industrial relations dynamics of the meat freezing industry without explaining how a complex web of interconnected organisations sought to regulate the export trade to further their respective interests. One important relationship was that between the processors and the farmers (the two key components of the pastoral industry). Both groups had a vested interest in promoting the meat trade, although the two groups negotiated to protect their individual interests as buyers and sellers of stock.35 The 'weekly livestock schedule' formalised the relationship between the two groups. The schedule represented the net price to farmers for various grades of stock after 'intervening charges' for killing, freezing, transport, storage and distribution. The New Zealand Meat Producers Board (the Board) stood between the processors and farmers, coordinating the schedule and administering export licensing. Changes to the prevailing schedule that reflected upwards adjustments in charges or lower prices would mean lower returns for either processors or farmers whereas a rise in prices gave the farmers greater returns or lowered the exporters' costs of production. It was the role of the Board to ensure industry profitability, primarily for farmers.36 In doing so, the Board attempted to limit the ability of the large, overseas-owned processors to control the export market.37	16
The Board also represented the meat industry in matters of shipping. Most importantly, the Board negotiated cargo freight rates with the dominant United Kingdom Shipping Conference. Here again was an area of underlying tension between export processors and the Board. The exporters' dissatisfaction with the Board's exclusionary approach to shipping negotiations prompted them to establish a direct relationship with the Overseas Lines through the Meat Exporters Council. Prior to the formation of this Council, the North and South Island Associations elected a Freight Advisory Committee to liaise with the Board and the Shipping Conferences. The new Council quickly absorbed the Advisory Committee in a move foundation Chair P. Norman (of Borthwicks) justified by condemning the Board for 'intrud[ing] with greater prominence about 1960 and since then the trade has tended to be isolated from direct discussions with the shipping lines'.38 Yet, despite the creation of their own Meat Exporters Council, the processors remained unhappily excluded from formal freight rate negotiations conducted between the Board's Shipping Committee and the Shipping Conference Lines.39	17
Export processors represented their interests less directly on an overlapping association, the Exports and Shipping Council. Meat exporters lobbied this organisation for reforms to road, rail and shipping that might improve the efficiency of cargo handling so as to guarantee the arrival of produce in good order and to reduce the costs of cold storage. While the processors felt it necessary to involve themselves closely in all matters related to exporting they did not appreciate the involvement of the Exports and Shipping Council in the affairs of the freezing industry. The Secretaries of both NIFCA and SIFCA advised the Council not to become directly involved in any industrial disputes and only discuss such matters 'without in any way indicating criticism of the manner in which any industrial problem had been handled or settled'.40 Despite differences of opinion, meat employers viewed cooperation with the Council as a vital means of influencing the direction of export policy, particularly, during the 1960s and 1970s, in relation to the implementation of new handling and shipping methods such as pallet loading and containerisation.	18
Containers, Pallets and Meat Processors
The expansion of New Zealand's meat export trade from the 1960s coincided with a revolution in transportation heralded by the arrival of the container era. Farmers and processors saw this as a happy coincidence and an opportunity to reduce their exorbitant transport costs. In particular, they expected greater efficiency in terminal storage and cargo-handling which, in 1968, the Exports and Shipping Council advised amounted to 60 per cent of the total transportation costs, with the remaining 23 and 17 per cent attributed respectively to transport to and from port, and ocean movement.41 Inflated terminal costs resulted partly from the dynamics of industrial relations on the waterfront. The Exports and Shipping Council lamented the fact that waterfront negotiations took place between a 'strongly welded union' and shipping interests 'inhibited by commercial expediency, and not infrequently the threat of industrial retaliation against their own ships. In the final analysis, rising costs are passed on in increased freight rates'.42 The Council could not prevent increases in freight rates despite the efforts of its officials to implement measures to contain costs, including the 'streamlining' of shipping to facilitate loading and unloading at fewer ports.43	19
To tackle terminal costs head on, the Council recommended a three-pronged approach: first to reduce unproductive time resulting from delays in loading and unloading; second to increase throughput of mechanical loading and third to improve the presentation of cargo by increasing the use of unit loads. For these initiatives to be effective, the Council relied heavily on the ability of the Board to obtain accurate production forecasts from individual works and a precise knowledge of 'workable' cold storage, for all parties knew well that the 'industry is subject to periodic and irregular fluctuations though the operation of climactic and seasonal factors ... that influence intra-industry competition and create problems in programming export shipments'.44	20
Conscious of the need to be seen to support measures to contain or reduce freight rates, the Overseas Shipping Conference Lines established a 'Containerisation Committee' in 1966 to investigate current handling methods and suggest possible improvements, looking in particular at containerisation, pallets and standard loads or packs.45 Meat producers welcomed this initiative claiming 'The industry has a special interest in techniques of cargo handling, because of the perishable nature of its cargoes, and because of the need to process, package, and transport its products under conditions designed to ensure the best possible market returns in overseas markets'.46 The employers thus clearly understood that their own efforts to improve efficiency within the production process might have little impact if produce languished in cold storage awaiting transportation.	21
With the promise of much greater terminal efficiency, expectation turned to disappointment when, in 1968, the Conference Lines indicated that containerisation of New Zealand shipping would have to wait until 1972 at the earliest.47 Criticism came from all quarters. The Minister of Labour saw postponement 'as an anticlimax to many people in New Zealand who look on the concept of containerised shipping as the best prospect for reducing freight rates'.48 The Council's lack of influence on the Conference Lines became such a source of frustration that Council Chair, (Sir) J. Ormond, spoke publicly about the possibility of chartering ships or even creating a New Zealand owned Line instead of continuing the present contracting system.49 '[A]s the principal clients of the British Shipping Lines', the processors expressed particularly disappointment at the statements. The delay in containerisation, they warned, 'will materially influence the future for of coal storage construction at New Zealand Freezing Works ... The sooner any doubt is removed, the better from our point of view'.50	22
In anticipation of the efficiencies that new handling and transportation technologies might deliver, the employers had already invested considerable sums to build modern warehousing facilities suitable for handling bulk palletised loads.51 Tests conducted by the Package and Cargo Handling Committee of the Council demonstrated that palletised loading had the potential to yield impressive results. One experiment revealed that two employees (one operating a fork-lift) could load out at the rate of 1,000 cartons per hour whereas the conventional method would require the services of 18 to 20 employees to achieve the same rate. Thus, 'Very substantial savings can obviously be made at this point'.52 Tests conducted on carcassed meat demonstrated similar efficiencies and, in the case of both products, the condition of the delivered goods to wharf and onto ships proved completely satisfactory. Such experiments had convinced the Manager of the Auckland Harbour Board of the benefits of palletisation, and even the Chair of the Overseas Shipping Association claimed to be delighted about the possibility of cost efficiencies which the Shipping Lines would (of course!) consider passing on to exporters.53	23
Workers and their Representatives
Meat processing experienced a fundamental transformation in the 1930s when the 'chain' system displaced 'solo-butchering'. Chains introduced scientific management to meat production as relatively de-skilled slaughterers repeatedly performed discrete cuts along a conveyor-like 'dis-assembly' line.54 This technology enabled management to weaken worker control over the production process and certain employers exploited their advantage.55 Yet, managerial control slipped during the post-war development of the industry as the desire of employers to kill and process quickly ever-increasing quantities of perishable stock enabled employees to extract valuable concessions, particularly during peak processing. Knowing that employers would not tend to support each other by refusing to accept stock otherwise destined for a company experiencing a strike, the unions only needed to agitate to extend across the industry the improvements gained at any one firm.56 Employers on the other hand had an incentive to reduce fluctuations in demand and supply to improve their bargaining position.57 They might achieve this objective by extending the kill and processing season.	24
The main industrial relations adversary of the JLC was the Freezing Works and Related Trades Industrial Association of Workers. One industrial agreement, the New Zealand Meat Processors Award, covered the majority of the industry's employees while separate awards governed the work of clerical and trades employees.58 Generally speaking, trades employees registered levels of militancy lower than labourers who, in turn, had a lower propensity to engage in industrial action than slaughterers or freezing chamber workers.	25
The groups with the greatest bargaining power were thus those located strategically at the beginning and end of the production process. As piece workers, slaughterers might also recoup wages lost to industrial action in situations where employers required make-up production to meet production quotas. Plant labourers employed on hourly rates did not enjoy the same opportunity. Freezing chamber workers derived much of their bargaining power from the constraints that perishable production placed upon cold storage. If the refusal to store produce proved an effective form of industrial action so too did the refusal to discharge frozen produce. A so called 'load out' ban might even force a halt to production during peak killing season, with freezing rooms approaching full capacity and employers unable to make sales. By the 1960s, more technical processing requirements and the development of new product lines extended bargaining power to other workers such as boners.	26
Preserving relativities between the wages and conditions of the heterogeneous groups of workers remained one of the processors' constant difficulties during the 1960s and 1970s. Any increase granted to one group of workers inevitable led to claims for 'flow-on'. With many employers upgrading plant and cold storage facilities and introducing new processing technologies such as 'on-the-rail dressing' (see below), the processors faced increased pressures from their employees, especially those with trade qualifications. Fitters' representatives argued that the installation of new plant and equipment had made their members an indispensable feature of the labour process.59 In 1963 (and again in 1964 and 1968), the Fitters Union presented to the JLC a claim for increased wages based on lower hourly rates compared to permanent labourers. On each occasion, the JLC viewed as unrealistic direct comparisons between the discrete groups. Given that 85 per cent of the export meat kill occurred during only six months of the year, employers justified paying 'permanent' labourers a loading in recognition of the seasonal nature of their work.60 Thus, the JLC would 'not recognise any relation between the rates of pay for fitters and those of freezing workers. Neither the work nor the conditions of employment are comparable'.61 The fitters' representatives naturally disagreed, viewing the matter purely in terms of relativity: trades employees had an entitlement to a margin for their skill.62 Employer representatives continually gave these assertions short shrift having resolved not to turn private discussions into formal Conciliation Councils.	27
In view of their efforts to preserve existing relativities, JLC officials harshly criticised individual processors who broke ranks by making concessions to particular groups of workers. In 1960, for example, Hawke's Bay Freezing Co. offered an increase of 8 shillings per 100 on existing rates for mutton and lamb slaughter hands performing 'obnoxious' work. This 'irresponsible action' caused outrage within the ranks of the Association when what appeared a fairly isolated concession threatened to upset a number of relativities, including the margins established between these workers and beef slaughterers, employees on hourly rates and trades employees. The JLC condemned the actions of the company and resolved to confine the concession to the local area by asking North Island firms to resist increasing rates even, if necessary, by closing their works.63 To strengthen the resolve of its members, the Association further determined that in the event of a closure, companies continuing to operate must put up stock on behalf of closed works and that workers who agreed to resume work must be available to kill and process stock on behalf of any company.	28
If JLC officials criticised individual companies for making concessions, they happily congratulated members when they resisted claims through concerted action. In 1962, the JLC praised its South Island members for collectively refusing to pay workers who engaged in unofficial stoppages. The JLC even advised its affiliates to refuse to negotiate with District union officials who would only seek to 'whittle down' the employers' resolve. In sending this message, the JLC sought to impress upon its affiliates, as it would repeatedly, that union claims were best dealt with along constitutional lines, through Association representation in Conciliation Council or through the FIDC.64	29
Incentive Payments and Technological Change
Incentive payments were a feature of labour management in meat processing well before the 1960s. Employers saw incentives as a means of reducing the industry's chronic absenteeism and employee dissatisfaction associated with often boring and repetitive work.65 As in other industries, incentives also absolved management of the often-difficult task of closely supervising work effort. Historically, incentives applied through a simple form of piece-work payment known as the 'tally' system. Tallies determined the number of stock processed by an employee per day or week across a works or within a particular region (across the country tallies often varied considerably).66 Unlike genuine incentive schemes, tallies provided no real means of increasing productivity. Instead, they tended to allow employees to regulate production (and staffing levels) to achieve consistent earnings.	30
Employers considered tallies inefficient when they hindered particular responses to operational considerations. Employers might offer specific incentives to obtain the agreement of employees to extend the season or to work through the peak Christmas and New Year period, or to raise production to process stock affected by drought. If these appeared to be legitimate reasons for incentives,67 JLC officials looked less favourably on employers using incentives as a means of competing for labour. One-off payments to hold or poach labour were a sign of a strong market characterised by a shortage of labour, and yet were also a source of obvious frustration for an Association attempting to contain labour costs.	31
Association minutes, reports and circulars recorded concern at attempts by individual firms to introduce or vary incentive payment systems, especially in conjunction with the introduction of new processing and storage technology. In particular, on-rail-dressing became one of the most notable developments in meat processing during the mid-1960s.68 This new technology served the needs of expanding beef markets by enabling greater numbers of cattle to be processed while also satisfying stringent hygiene requirements.69 One representative explained to the JLC that the introduction of rail technology had also enabled his company to replace its experienced boners with lower skilled employees, and made the task of supervision easier.70 The rail system required fewer cuts per employee making it easy to trace faults to individual workers. Yet, if rail technology held the promise of greater productivity and increased hygiene and quality control it also 'opened up an entirely new field of industrial trouble' over wages.71 If employers feared the inevitable efforts of union officials to apply the most generous incentive granted at any works across the entire industry, they also saw the earnings potential of on-rail employees as a potential 'source of discontent' to other workers.72 Accordingly, the JLC required any employers who considered introducing new technology to put their remuneration plans before the executive.73 As new rail technology began to spread across the industry, the JLC established a sub-committee to assist members to develop appropriate formulae for setting incentive payments that would not create an explosion in wage costs.74	32
While the employer representatives felt it desirable for processors to introduce incentives to maintain or lower unit production costs by raising productivity, they remained concerned about maintaining 'reasonable comparability between works'.75 To this end, the JLC sought from its affiliates detailed information on staffing levels and methods of payment and any changes they might introduce.76 Unhappily, the efforts of the sub-committee that was created to standardise rates did not prevent significant variations in pay across the industry. Regional labour shortages compounded variations caused by the adoption of different forms of bonus and incentive payments to the point where employees received vastly different levels of remuneration. Records submitted from individual works indicated that employees working exceptionally long hours might receive as much as £100 per week compared to an industry average of approximately £35 per week.	33
In the face of these alarming disparities, the JLC attempted to persuade association members not to use incentives simply to increase work effort and raise production. As consumer expectations of quality increased, employers needed to refine their incentives. Systems that provided workers with prescribed pay levels according to stock kills gave workers little reason to exercise care during processing. Neither were incentives that promoted maximum production compatible with employer efforts to serve customers expecting variations in product lines.77 The JLC attempted to control the spread of incentives by asking processors to consider the impact of new proposals on the industry as a whole and by demanding that individual firms present their schemes to the executive for approval prior to implementation.78 Individual employer initiatives in the area of incentives payment continued to trouble association officials into the 1970s. In 1971, the MIEA formed a new incentive sub-committee in order to find a common basis for formatting incentive payments.79	34
Hygiene and Safety
If market opportunities forced employers to improve the quality of meat for export these initiatives had obvious implications for labour management. Legislative amendments incorporated into the Meat Act in 1964 prescribed a range of new processing regulations to satisfy United States and European consumers. All employees had to sit medical tests, wear protective clothing and headgear, and constantly sterilise equipment. Other provisions regulated the packaging, bagging and marking of meat.80 The new regulations required all employers to meet the standards of the exporter leaders who had already instituted changes to their processing as the following description of the production of boneless export beef at Borthwicks illustrates:	35
The boning tables have non-chip tops made of special composition. The cut meat travels on cover belts that are endlessly washed by continuous water jets. The rooms are fitted with fly screens and smoke-excluding devices. The inspectors are hawk-eyed.81
These 'hawk-eyed' Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries inspectors had now begun to inform producers that the enforcement of strict hygiene standards proved incompatible with traditional piecework payments systems that encouraged speed rather than quality (or for that matter safety) in production. Occasionally, inspectors felt compelled to use their authority to slow down or halt the production line to properly conduct their inspections.82 Employers complained that arbitrariness in the enforcement of general hygiene and inspection standards forced them to make expensive modifications to processing, and to contend with union claims for increased pay rates that might offset slower rates of production.83 New hygiene regulations prohibiting smoking on the slaughterhouse floor also upset traditional industry custom and practice and proved extremely difficult to eliminate.	36
Along with hygiene, health and safety ranked as a major concern to meat processors with employer representatives well aware that safety issues create at least 50 per cent greater lost production time than industrial disputes.84 The JLC's approach towards health and safety matched its industrial relations strategy with standardisation given high priority, especially over matters that might improve hygiene and quality control. The JLC even considered whether to adopt a resolution to require all employers to issue precisely the same safety clothing and equipment to every employee.85 In 1963, the processors agreed to elect a committee, comprising 2 representatives from both North and South Island employers, to make recommendations and health and safety. The committee would, at all times, come under the direct control of the JLC.86	37
The JLC adopted a particularly forceful approach to matters relating to health and safety that threatened to intrude into traditional areas of managerial prerogative. In 1961, the Committee objected to a proposed parliamentary Bill to amend workers' compensation legislation by allowing union representatives to photograph the scene of an accident 'at any reasonable time'. It disappointed members to learn that a union representative had recently entered the premises of a Wellington processor without permission or even prior notification. One disgusted member speculated 'it could well be that the Act was deliberately designed so that an employer did not have notice of intention to photograph, so that he did not have prior opportunity to tidy up the scene of an accident'.87	38
Regulating Employer and Union Initiative
In an era of new technology, markets and processing methods, disunity proved inevitable, yet some frustrations defied justification. By the end of 1964, J. Walton, then both JLC and NIFCA Secretary, admitted to being 'sick and tired' that solidarity had become 'more honoured in the breach than in the observance'.88 At issue on this occasion was the unofficial reintroduction of rest and smoko breaks at a Wellington (North Island) and South Otago (South Island) works. Employer representatives had recently 'given monetary weight' to remove such breaks, reaching agreement with the unions in a memorandum attached to the industry award.89 The application of this agreement enabled employers to improve productive efficiency while it also brought the parties into compliance with the new regulations of the 1964 Act prohibiting smoking within the production process.90 If the reintroduction of unofficial breaks at individual works disappointed the JLC, even more annoying was the un-repentant attitude of the involved companies' representatives. O. Clayton, representing the Wellington (Gear Meat) Company, agreed on the need for unity during award negotiations but after then, he claimed, 'each company must be free to run its own business with the framework of that award'.91 Accordingly, Gear Meat had sanctioned the reintroduction of breaks by extending work hours to make up for lost time.	39
The actions of the individual companies placed the JLC in an extremely difficult position. Any unsuccessful attempt to force the companies to once again remove the breaks would surely test the credibility of the JLC. The removal of the breaks would also likely provoke industrial action that might not be confined to the two works. On the other hand, failing to act might also weaken the authority of the JLC and see employees at other works agitate to reintroduce their breaks on even less favourable terms. Faced with these alternatives the Committee decided to do nothing but express its considerable dissatisfaction with the actions of the two companies.	40
This minor reproach did nothing to resolve the issue and neither did it please the representatives of most other employers. As a long-serving, full-time employer representative, Walton attempted to reason with his wayward members by explaining the 'impossible position' in which their actions placed Association assessors when they negotiated with union adversaries in Conciliation Council. The employers' principal assessor, L. Lane, representing the Auckland Farmers Freezing Co., expressed both his personal dissatisfaction as a representative acting in Conciliation proceedings and his employer's frustration at being 'foisted with something someone else had given away after assessors had struggled hard to obtain it'.92 Lane, and other members such as former JLC Chair A. Peach, argued all members had a profound 'moral obligation' to refer matters of interest to the Association and to support its decisions. If individuals broke ranks, Peach asserted, a concession at one works inevitable led to a call to obtain the same concession at every other works. Yet even this logic could not prevail upon the recalcitrant members or their supporters who argued that 'if the two companies think fit not to observe these resolutions and retain the right to run their own works, then we consider that the Labour Committee has no authority to enforce compliance'.93	41
If the truth of this statement shocked some members it forced others to question the very reason for having a Joint Labour Committee. Lane spoke on behalf of the three Auckland employers who, he claimed, understood 'the wisdom of presenting a united front'.94 Around the Christmas and New Year break, for example, Auckland employers traditionally closed their works in unison so as to avoid competing for labour during peak killing season.95 The JLC encouraged all its affiliates to observe this practice to regulate both labour costs and industry output but, inevitably, some members exercised their own judgement. Disgusted at the lack of discipline of other members, Lane suggested that if the present trend continued the Auckland firms 'may as well draw a line ... and negotiate a separate Industrial Agreement'. Backpedaling at the force of these remarks, Clayton defended his company by claiming that an extremely competitive market dictated that Gear Meat needed to offer some concession to attract labour. At this, JLC Chair, O. Crawford, felt compelled to point out that 'all Companies had similar problems and if one Company was going to break away there was no point in having a JLC'.96	42
Rather than force an unworkable resolution on this insoluble problem, JLC officials attempted to put disunity behind them by focusing attention on the actions of other parties. Accordingly, association members agreed to a motion to request that the Secretary of the Department of Labour advise departmental officers to refrain from encouraging union officials to engage in industrial action to improve their members' award rates and conditions.97 JLC officials believed that the unions' selective use of the industry's formal disputes procedures confirmed that the unions saw award rates as minimum entitlements to be enhanced by direct industrial action. The employers also criticised district union officials for vetting local disputes and counseling delegates to proceed with industrial action in cases they could not realistically defend before the FIDC.98	43
After enjoying a short period of relative industrial harmony during the mid-1960s, the employers faced new challenges at the end of the decade as the unions both increased their tempo of activity and, in the north, strengthened their organisation by forming a North Island Freezing Workers Federation. These developments convinced the JLC that it was also time for the employers to re-examine their own organisation and, specifically, to revisit the proposals Stanley put before them in 1963.99 Reservations about rigid policies that prohibited individual initiative were not sufficient, at this time at least, to prevent the employers from agreeing unanimously to find a means to overcome their all too apparent disunity. This new resolve must have pleased H. Hayes of Borthwicks who, for the last six months, had argued that 'collective action was of vital concern' for 'otherwise the unions would press for the most advantageous conditions that applied at any one works'.100 Remarkably, these statements did not prevent the industry's dominant processor from seeking exemption from the strictures it wished to see imposed on other members. In 1969, Hayes informed the JLC that Borthwicks would appeal a FIDC decision that bound three of its works to implement the same incentive payment system despite their varying circumstances. Borthwicks' decision concerned Lane who, as principal assessor, cautioned members not to abandon the industry's disputes procedures.101	44
If individual employers believed that the creation of the MIEA in 1971 would signal an end to the JLC's strategy of standardisation, they were soon to be disappointed. During the Association's inaugural Annual General Meeting, a Special General Meeting recorded the following comments in relation to the Association's industrial policy.	45
the various precedents which could be established by individual works and/or company negotiators were such that they could be sources of embarrassment to the industry on a national basis. To this extent the industry should work towards a standardization of terms and conditions of employment, particularly in those cases where agreements involved procedures that were not specifically provided for in the Award.102
Members quickly reached consensus on the need for greater use of the industry's disputes committee as well as the use of the media to highlight instances where the unions refused to attend FIDC meetings.	46
A dispute involving a claim for increased rates for slaughtering 'bobby calves' quickly tested the mettle of the new Industrial Committee and the resolve of its members. Although the action remained confined to 'go-slows' in Auckland works, the Committee recommended to MIEA members implementing 'on a national basis, an action which will demonstrate to all members of the freezing workers unions that the industry is united on this and future issues'.103 The Committee wished to impress upon the MIEA that 'It is essential that we maintain the sanctity of agreements' for 'any variation can only give encouragement to Union members to make their claims for wages at any time whatsoever'.104 The MIEA backed its Committee members by resolving to obtain assurances of a return to normal production by a specified date with the threat that should this not occur, no calves (or for that matter) sheep or lambs would be brought in for slaughter at the affected works.105	47
Having resolved this dispute successfully the MIEA reminded its members, as subsequent disagreements arose, to place all industrial matters before the FIDC.106 The Association's Executive Officer also wrote to each of the secretaries of the registered freezing unions to record the employers' 'discontent' at union refusals to attend FIDC meetings.107 Such was the frustration with the unions' disregard for the use of the industry's formal disputes procedures that the employers refused to agree to an operative date for the introduction of an industry superannuation scheme until 'noticeable improvements take place on a national basis'.108 By the end of its first year of operation the MIEA had advised its members not to break ranks and make concessions over a range of disputed matters. These included demands for special payments for Wellington employees working in blast freezer tunnels, union restrictions on slaughtering wet sheep, and an ongoing claim by Auckland freezing chamber employees for additional payment for loading containers.109 By 1972, the eventual introduction of the container era had delivered its promised efficiencies in loading out (see above). Claims for increased wages were the consequence of these efficiencies that substantially reduced the availability of overtime and weekend employment for freezing chamber workers.110	48
By the mid-1970s, in the context of an increasingly decentralised system of industrial relations, Association officials could rightly claim that they had successfully implemented their long-term bargaining strategy. During the period 1968–73 the number of disputes referred to the FIDC doubled from that recorded in the previous five years, from 119 to 242. The unions clearly saw this increase as the responsibility of the employers and were unhappy at the diminution of their local autonomy. Thus:	49
Since 1971 the employers have centralised their industrial matters with the formation of the Meat Industry Employers Association. Industrial questions are mainly referred to that organisation ... disputes which were once settled at the works level, are now forwarded to the F.I.D.C. to be handled by the employers nationally ... The present procedures are leading to a position where the F.I.D.C. is asked to make a decision which rightfully should be made at the works concerned between local management and local Union representatives.111
Conclusion
Although a number of studies of the New Zealand meat freezing have drawn attention to an alarming pattern of industrial conflict, the employers' role in creating or remedying industrial disputation remains poorly examined. This study demonstrates that the concerted efforts of Association officials proved unable to regulate a dispute-prone industry in the face of a constant tide of union action that self-interested company initiatives only served to promote. If JLC and MIEA officials battled union adversaries to contain wage costs in Conciliation Council or FIDC hearings, they also fought a constant battle to ensure that they might speak with the authority of all of their members in the same proceedings. Frustration followed frustration as individual members made concessions that union officials worked hard to turn into new industry benchmarks. Employer disunity gave the unions considerable scope to improve their members' conditions by pursuing direct action in contradiction to the industry's formal disputes procedures.	50
Yet, if Stanley's passionate call for unity might have given employers cause to reflect on their negotiating practices, cooler heads within the meat freezing industry understood that the standardisation of all terms and conditions of employment could not have been a realistic expectation for the employers' association. The rapid development of new markets and the diffuse introduction of new processing technology and payment systems through the 1960s and 1970s made the task of coordinating bargaining strategy a perilous exercise for JLC officials. Ultimately, variations in product lines, the type of technology, the physical conditions of the plant and the relative scarcity of labour produced different responses from individual employers and their local managers. The uneven impact of these forces across the industry in turn produced unresolved tensions as Association representatives sought with mixed success to convince their affiliates to adhere to a consistent bargaining strategy.	51
In the final analysis, this study serves to demonstrate how contrived academic distinctions between employer association bargaining strategies based on either reactivity or initiative cloud our understanding of the complex and conflicted relationship between association representatives and their individual constituents. If Association officials sought to constrain the initiative of individual meat processors, this was not a reactive response but rather a calculated strategy designed to minimise on all firms the impact of intense product market competition and an increasingly decentralised system of wage determination.	52
Endnotes * I wish to gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of the two anonymous Labour History referees. 1. 'Industrial Relations', Memorandum attached to Minutes of New Zealand Freezing Companies Industrial Union of Employers (hereafter NZFCIUE) Joint Labour Committee Minutes (hereafter JLC Minutes), 20 November 1963, pp. 90–163, Box 2, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington (hereafter ATL). 2. B. Curtis and J. Reveley, 'Producers, Processors and Unions: the Meat Producers Board and Labour Relations in the New Zealand Meat Industry, 1952–1971', Australian Economic History Review, vol. 41, no. 2, July 2001. 3. D. Turkington, Industrial Conflict: a Study of Three New Zealand Industries, Methuen, Wellington, 1976; K. Inkson, 'Management Practice and Industrial Conflict: the Case of the New Zealand Meat Industry', New Zealand Journal of Business, vol. 1, 1979. 4. J. Howells and R. Alexander, 'A Strike in the Meat Freezing Industry: Background to Industrial Discontent in New Zealand', Industrial and Labour Relations Review, vol. 21, no. 3, 1968; A. Geare, 'The Problem of Industrial Unrest: Theories into the Causes of Local Strikes in a New Zealand Meat Freezing Works', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 14, no. 1, 1972; A. Geare, 'The Conflict over Strike Causes in Otago and Southland Meat Freezing Works', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 15, no. 1, 1973. 5. P. Walsh, 'The Saga of Ocean Beach: a Cautionary Tale', in R. Harbride and P. Walsh, New Zealand Industrial Relations in the late 1970s: Three Cases, Victoria University of Wellington, 1983; P. Walsh, Conflict-Regulation in a New Zealand Meat Works: the Problem of Social Order in an Industrial Setting, MA Thesis, Political Science, University of Canterbury, 1974–75; C. Eichbaum, Men in the Meat Industry: Instrumentalism in Work, Class and Community, MA Thesis, Sociology, University of Canterbury, 1980. 6. H. Roth, Trade Unions in New Zealand: Past and Present, Reed Education, Wellington, 1973, p. 151; Turkington, Industrial Conflict, p. 16. 7. L. McLean, 'The Development of a Disputes Procedure in the Meat Processing Industry', in J. Howells, N. Woods and F. Young (eds), Labour and Industrial Relations in New Zealand, Pitman, Australia, 1974, p. 218. 8. Statement of H. Hayes, appended to JLC Minutes, 26 July 1967. 9. J. Boston, Incomes Policy in New Zealand: 1968–1984, Victoria University Press, Wellington, 1984, p. 81. See also D. Martin, 'A Discussion of Wage Structure in New Zealand', in J. Howells, N. Woods, F. Young (eds), Labour and Industrial Relations in New Zealand, Pitman Books, Australia, 1974, pp. 267–273. 10. The following represent some of the key studies of employers and their associations. J. Windmuller and A. Gladstone, Employer Associations and Industrial Relations: a Comparative Study, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1984; K. Thurley and S. Wood, Industrial Relations and Management Strategies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983; K. Sisson, The Management of Collective Bargaining: an International Comparison, Blackwell, Oxford, 1987; S. Tolliday and J. Zeitlin, The Power to Manage?: Employer and Industrial Relations in Comparative-Historical Perspective, Routledge, London, 1991. 11. D. Plowman, Holding the Line: Compulsory Arbitration and National Employer Coordination in Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989. 12. See S. Macintyre and R. Mitchell (eds), Foundation of Arbitration: the Origins and Effects of State Compulsory Arbitration 1890–1914, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1989; J. Holt, Compulsory Arbitration in New Zealand: the First Forty Years, Auckland University Press, 1986. 13. David Plowman wrote a number of articles on Australian employer associations in which he developed his reactivity thesis. See for example, D. Plowman, 'Employer Associations and Industrial Reactivity', Labour and Industry, vol. 1, no. 2, 1988; For New Zealand employer association behaviour see, P. Brosnan, P. Walsh and P. Rowe, 'The Inactivities of Employer Unions', New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 10, no. 3, 1985. 14. M. Barry, 'Employer Associations: Assessing Plowman's Reactivity Thesis', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 37, no. 4, December 1995; P. Sheldon and L. Thornthwaite (eds), Employer Associations and Industrial Relations Change: Catalysts or Captives, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1999; M. Westcott, 'Employers and Bargaining Structure: the Case of the Australian Oil Industry', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 41, no. 4, December 1999. 15. Centralisation characterized the employers' approach to industrial relations in the Canadian 'meat packing' industry. Canadian firms supported national collective bargaining as a means of regulating competition within the market, rather than as an initiative to preserve traditional managerial prerogatives. See, A. Forrest, 'The Rise and Fall of National Bargaining in the Canadian Meat-Packing Industry', Relations Industrielles, vol. 44, no. 2, 1989. 16. P. Swenson, 'Bringing Capital Back In, or Social Democracy Reconsidered: Employer Power, Cross-Class Alliances, and Centralization of Industrial Relations in Denmark and Sweden', World Politics, vol. 43, no. 4, 1991; L. Ulman, 'Connective Bargaining and Competitive Bargaining', Scottish Journal of Political Economy, vol. 21, 1984. In a famous critique, Flanders argued that the Webbs' analysis of collective bargaining as a method only of trade unionism overlooked the important role of employers and their associations in its development. A. Flanders, 'Collective Bargaining: a Theoretical Analysis', British Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 6, no. 1, 1968. 17. Swenson, 'Bringing Capital Back In', p. 543; R. Adams, 'A Theory of Employer Attitudes and Behaviour Towards Trade Unions in Western Europe and North America', in G. Dlugos and K. Weiermair (eds), Management Under Different Value Systems: Political, Social and Economical Perspectives in a Changing World, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 1981, p. 284. 18. H. Clegg, The Changing System of Industrial Relations in Great Britain, Blackwell, Oxford, 1979, p. 298. 19. P. Walsh, 'An "Unholy Alliance": the 1968 Nil Wage Order', New Zealand Journal of History, 1994 20. P. Walsh, 'In Recognition of Skill: the Growth of Qualification Payments, 1960–1980', New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 8, no. 1, 1984; Martin, 'A Discussion of Wage Structure', p.267. 21. A. Fleming, 'Developments in the Meat Industry', in R. Barton (ed.), A Century of Achievement: a commemoration of the first 100 years of the New Zealand meat industry, The Dunmore Press, 1984, p. 187. 22. N. Perry, 'Upside Down or Downside Up? Sectoral Interests, Structural Change and Public Policy', in J. Deeks and N. Perry (eds), Controlling Interests: Business, the State and Society in New Zealand, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 1992; B. Maughan, 'Red Meat', in M. Pickford and A. Bollard (eds), The Structure and Dynamics of New Zealand Industries, The Dunmore Press, New Zealand, 1998, pp. 27–30. 23. Price Commission, Prices and Margins in Meat Distribution, Report No. 7, Her Majesty's Stationary Office, 1975, p. 6; Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Meat Industry, Government Printer, Wellington, April 1974, pp. 20–22. 24. D. Turkington, Industrial Conflict, p. 31; R. Johnston (ed.), Urbanisation in New Zealand: Geographical Essays, Reed Education, Auckland, 1973, p. 27. 25. Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Meat Industry, p. 58. 26. Johnson Urbanisation in New Zealand, p. 27. 27. Borthwicks, Vesteys and Swift also dominated the Australian export meat industry for much of the Twentieth Century. P. O'Leary, 'The National Meat Association of Australia' in Sheldon and Thornthwaite Employer Associations, p. 140. 28. P. Norman, The Meat in the Sandwich: One Family's Involvement in a Major New Zealand Export Industry, Bowstring Press, New Zealand, 1998, p. 75–76. 29. Norman, The Meat in the Sandwich, pp. 90–95. Borthwicks first felt the sting of regulation when, after the introduction of the chain system, the New Zealand Government moved to limit its production of meat at the company's Canterbury works. See G. Harrison, Borthwicks: a Century in the Meat Trade, 1863–1963, London, 1963, pp. 127,130. 30. JLC Minutes, 4 April 1967, p.3. 31. J. Boston, Incomes Policy, p. 68. 32. Meat Industry Employers Association Minutes (hereafter MIEA Minutes), July 8, 1971, 90–163 Box 6, ATL. 33. 'Draft Rules of the New Zealand Freezing Companies Industrial Union of Employers', appended to the Minutes of the Meat Industry Employers' Association, Special General Meeting, 8 July 1971, p. 4, 90–163, Box 6, ATL. 34. JLC Minutes, 10 July 1963, p. 3. 35. Not all processors purchased stock, though most did own the stock they produced. 36. M. Calder and J. Tyson, Meat Acts: the New Zealand Meat Industry, 1972–1997, Wellington, 1999. 37. For an historical analysis of complex relationship between the producers, processors and the Board see B. Curtis, Producers, Processors and Markets: a Study of the Export Meat Industry in New Zealand, Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Canterbury, 1996. 38. Minutes of Meeting of Executive of the New Zealand Meat Exporters' Council, NZMEC General and Annual Meetings, 13 Jan 1972, p. 2, 90–163, Box 7, ATL. 39. Commission of Inquiry, p. 41. 40. M. Willyams (Secretary SIFCA) correspondence to The Administrator, Exports and Shipping Council, 22 February 1973; J. Walton, (Secretary NIFCA) correspondence to The Administrator, Exports and Shipping Council, 1 March 1973, ATL 90–163. 41. Exports and Shipping Council — Statement by the Chairman, Sir J. Ormond, April 10, 1968, p. 2. 90–163, Box 8, ATL. 42. J. Ross, Administrator Export and Shipping Council, Confidential correspondence to members of the Exports and Shipping Council, 'Reorganisation of the Ports', (n.d.), p.9, 90–163, ATL. 43. 'Confidential 1966–67 Shipping Programme — for Exports and Shipping Council', New Zealand Meat Producers Board, 90–163, Box 8, ATL. The Streamlining process sought to move away from ships visiting many small ports, referred to as 'call at your farm policy'. This policy, supported by a flat freight rate system, had been criticised by the larger harbour boards for many years for breeding a culture of inefficiency in cargo-handling that worked especially against the interests of those seeking fast and frequent shipments of produce. For a discussion see P. Rimmer, 'The Changing Status of New Zealand Sea Ports 1853–1968', in Johnston (ed.), Urbanisation in New Zealand, pp. 53–54. 44. Movement Costs of New Zealand's Exports, Calendar Year 1968, Bulletin 1, Frozen Meat, Secretary of Transport, March 1970, p.1, 90–163, Box 8, ATL. See also Calder and Tyson, Meat Acts, p. 15. 45. Press Statement, New Cargo Handling Methods, 9 June 1966, 90–163, Box 8, ATL. 46. North Island Freezing Companies' Association, Circular No. 108/66, from W. Mathieson, Transport Spokesman for the Associated Freezing Companies, 16 June 1966, 90–163, Box 8, ATL. 47. By 1972, a regular container service carrying boneless beef to North America had operated at least in the North Island, at Wellington and Auckland, for 2 to 3 years. Commission of Inquiry, p. 48. 48. Speech Notes — Hon. T. Shand, Minister of Labour, Comment to Export and Shipping Council on Report on British Shipping Lines, March 13 1968, Box 8, 90–163, ATL. 49. Christchurch Press, 14 June 1968. 50. Press Statement Given to Press Association, Released by P. Norman and J. Fulton, NIFCA, March 13 1968, 90–163, Box 8, ATL. 51. North Island Freezing Companies' Association, Circular No. 108/66, from W. Mathieson, Transport Spokesman for the Associated Freezing Companies, 16 June 1966, 90–163, Box 8, ATL; Fleming, 'Developments in the Meat Industry', p. 192. 52. Exports and Shipping Council, report of Package and Cargo Handling Committee, 13 May 1966, 90–163, Box 8, ATL. 53. '"Tremendous Benefits": Pallet Loading System Vital for N.Z. Ports', Herald, 11 May 1966. In the same year, the JLC reported correspondence from the Port Employers Association of a major reduction in waterfront labour at Wellington following the introduction of palletisation. JLC Minutes, 11 October 1966, p. 3. 54. K. Inkson, 'The Man on the Dis-Assembly Line: New Zealand Freezing Workers', The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, vol. 13, no. 1, February 1977, p. 2. 55. K. Inkson and P. Cammock, 'The Meat-Freezing Industry in New Zealand', in E. Willis (ed.), Technology and the Labour Process: Australasian Case Studies, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1988; J. Martin, Holding the Balance: a History of New Zealand's Department of Labour 1891–1995, Canterbury University Press, Christchurch, 1996, p. 160. 56. Turkington, Industrial Conflict, p. 70,73. 57. P. Brosnan, D. Smith and P. Walsh, The Dynamics of New Zealand Industrial Relations, John Wiley and Sons, Auckland, 1990, p. 73. 58. For detail see Turkington, Industrial Conflict, pp 37–39. 59. JLC Minutes July 7 1965, p. 4; August 24 1965. 60. JLC Minutes, November 20, 1963. 61. JLC Minutes, September 3, 1964, p. 2. See also JLC Minutes, October 15 1968, p. 6; January 16 1969, p. 2. 62. JLC Minutes, September 3, 1964, p. 1. Statement by Mr. Allen, New Zealand Engineering Union, on behalf of freezing works fitters to Mr. Walton (Sec. JLC), Attached to JLC Minutes. 63. JLC Minutes, November 15, 1960. 64. JLC Minutes, January 17, 1962. 65. See for example, K. Inkson, 'Workers' Attitudes: an Empirical Study of the "Technology" Thesis', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 19, no. 3, September 1977. 66. In the Canterbury district (Christchurch) a 'quota' regulated production differently in that bargaining centered on the overall kill across all works. For example, in 1962, the Canterbury freezing companies sought to negotiate an increase in kills from 53,575 to 59,250 kills per day in the 8 district works. Employers using tallies could increase production by employing more workers. 67. The Association still instructed its members not to make such payments. See for example, JLC Minutes, August 4, 1961. 68. The 1965 AGM reported that three works had implemented on-rail dressing, with the new system on trial at one works and about to be installed at another six plants. JLC Minutes, July 21, 1965, p. 4. 69. L. McLean, 'The Development of a Disputes Procedure', p. 214; JLC Minutes, July 21, 1965. 70. JLC Minutes, October 11, 1966, p. 2. 71. JLC Minutes, 29 July 1966, p. 1. 72. JLC Minutes, 19 August 1969, p. 4. 73. JLC Minutes, January 30, 1963. 74. JLC Minutes, March 22, 1966, p. 8. 75. NZFCIUE, 'Draft Report on Incentive Sub-Committee', 31 July 1970, 90-163-Box 8, ATL. 76. JLC Minutes, July 21, 1965, p. 3; February 1 1966, p. 5. 77. JLC Minutes, May 28, 1963. 78. JLC Minutes, July 10, 1963; 3 May 1967. 79. MIEA Minutes, 1 October 1971; 15 October 1971; 2 February 1972. 80. C. Loach, A History of the New Zealand Refrigerating Company, Caxton Press, Christchurch, 1969, pp. 111–112; Turkington, Industrial Conflict, p. 32. 81. Harrison, Borthwicks, p. 188. 82. JLC Minutes 23 August 1967, p. 3. 83. JLC Minutes 27 September 1967; Commission of Inquiry, pp. 63–65. 84. JLC Minutes, 24 July 1969, p. 2. 85. Members of the Association eventually dismissed plans to compile a central register of clothing because standard clothing issue proved too difficult an issue to overcome given wide variations in climatic conditions across the country. JLC Minutes 26 July 1967, p. 3. 86. JLC Minutes, May 28, 1963. 87. JLC Minutes, August 4, 1961. 88. JLC Minutes, November 17, 1964. 89. The Memorandum provided for 'The introduction of no smoking at work places and the confinement of smoking to the recognized smokos and meal breaks and the discontinuance of short unofficial smoko breaks that have been granted to some workers in the past'. Department of Labour, Awards, Agreements, Orders and Decisions [Book of Awards], Government Printer, Wellington, vol. 64, Part 2, 1964, p. 1629. 90. Book of Awards, vol. 64, Part 2, 1964, p. 1602. 91. JLC Minutes, February 10, 1965, p. 3. 92. JLC Minutes, March 15–16, 1965, p. 3. 93. JLC Minutes, March 15–16, 1965, pp. 1–2. 94. JLC Minutes, March 15–16, 1965, p. 5. 95. JLC Minutes, June 10, 1963. Previously, in 1962, the Auckland employers also agreed to follow a new procedure that made alterations to rates and conditions possible only with the approval of proposals by the District Secretary of NIFCA. JLC Minutes, October 11, 1962. The Auckland employers again demonstrated the strength of their resolve in 1968 when trades employees at the three works instituted overtime bans in support of a claim for higher rates. The employers responded by threatening dismissals and the employees quickly returned to normal work. JLC Minutes, February 28, 1968. 96. JLC Minutes, March 15–16, 1965. By 1966, acute labour shortages had prompted the JLC to consider whether its members should offer full 'male' rates to females in an effort to satisfy staffing requirements. JLC Minutes, 11 October 1966, p. 3. 97. JLC Minutes, July 21, 1965, p. 5. 98. JLC Minutes, February 1, 1966. 99. JLC Minutes, 17 March 1969. 100. JLC Minutes, 29 July 1968,p. 6; February 18, 1969. 101. In its recent decisions, Lane argued, the FIDC had ruled decisively in the employers' favour on 15 occasions compared to 13 judgements that favoured the unions. JLC Minutes 19 August 1969, p. 2. 102. MIEA Minutes, July 8, 1971, p. 3. 103. J. Murray (Executive Officer, Industrial Committee), 'Background Paper on Dispute Related to Bobby Calves', appended to Minutes of MIEA, 29 July 1971, p. 3. 104. 'Background Paper', MIEA Minutes, 29 July 1971, p. 4. 105. MIEA Minutes, 29 July 1971. 106. MIEA Minutes, February 2, 1972. 107. MIEA Minutes, February 15 1972. 108. MIEA Industrial Committee Minutes (hereafter MIEAIC Minutes), May 11 1972. 109. MIEA Minutes, 1 October 1971; MIEAIC Minutes, 4 May 1972, 28 June 1972. 110. MIEAIC, August 4, 1972, p. 3–4; MIEA Minutes, 16 August 1972. 111. The Freezing Workers' Case and the Meat Commission, Union Submissions to the Meat Inquiry, Caxton Press, Christchurch, 1974, p. 17.

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