Union fears Talleys will leave the table

WORKPLACE: The Imlay meatworks, majority owned by the Talley group, is one of Wanganui's main employers.PHOTO/FILE

NZ Meatworkers Union organisers fear the Talley's Group will use new legislation to allow Affco to walk away from collective bargaining.

Talley's Group Limited is the majority owner of Affco - and thus Wanganui's Imlay meatworks and Land Meat.

About 35 per cent of workers there belong to the NZ Meatworkers Union, Wanganui secretary John Woodhead said.

Negotiation of their collective contract has been dragging on for months - 14 months in the case of the Imlay workers.

The Employment Relations Amendment Bill passed by the Government in October came into force yesterday.

It allows employers to walk away from collective wage bargaining if it is taking too long. They can apply to a court, leave workers' conditions the same for a year and then put all staff on individual contracts.

Mr Woodhead said Wanganui meatworkers could reasonably expect a pay increase, but it had been hard to get their employers to the negotiating table.

"We need a bit of teamwork from both sides," he said.

Affco was asking for some "pretty heavy-handed" changes.

It wants to reduce workers' minimum weekly pay by more than $100.

And it wants them to be physically at work for eight hours a day - most now work 7.5 hours and get paid overtime after that.

It also wants to strip away worker superannuation.

There are seven other Talley's workplaces in the collective, and national union president Mike Nahu said Affco-Talley's had been stalling on collective agreement negotiations over the past 14 months.

There were 10 unproductive days of bargaining, and eight new demands added just three weeks ago.

"The talks aren't going anywhere," Mr Woodhead said.

"I have done negotiations for years. It's very unlikely even for bad employers to be so stallish."