The lock out of 142 workers at the construction site for the new Mangere Bridge [unclear: n] South Auckland is now in its tenth [unclear: monh]. That makes it the longest-running industrial stoppage in NZ's history. It also [unclear: indiates] that this is far from an ordinary dispute [unclear: t] is one of the most important union struggles of recent history.

The dispute in the first instance was over [unclear: fedundancy] pay. Construction workers are [unclear: covered] by an agreement signed over two years [unclear: gc] by the Master Builders Association, the Federation of Labour, and the Labourers and Carpenters Unions. This agreement granted laid-off workers redundancy pay of one week's wages, if they had worked for 6 months or more, and 2 weeks' pay after a year or more. This agreement, [unclear: hardy] generous in the first place, was [unclear: obviousy] inadequate with the threat of a long [unclear: period] of unemployment. This especially [unclear: applies] to the building industry, which has [unclear: been] in a state of severe depression.

In the words of Zac Wallace, chairman of the Mangere Bridge workers job committee, when he spoke at Victoria on [unclear: Wednesday] March 7, the workers wanted to "[unclear: bring] it (the redundancy agreement) into line with the economic trends of the country today" Ray Bianchi, bridge worker and Vice President of the Auckland Labourers Union, told the AUSA paper Craccum that the [unclear: agreement] compared poorly with more recent settlements. He described "........... the Winstones agreement - it was about [unclear: 700%] better than the Master Builders agreement. The Winstones agreement gives you an accumulation of approximately 23 weeks redundancy after you have been with the firm for 20 years". Bianchi also pointed out that "Wilkins and Davies Industries have the same board of directors as Wilkins and Davies Construction, to the man. We have a copy of a redundancy agreement signed by Wilkins and Davies Industries in April of last year, just before we got the sack, which is as good as the Winstones agreement."

In February of last year the Labourers and Carpenters Unions approached the Bridge contractors. Wilkins and Davies Construction, and asked them to renogotiate the redendancy deal. This was allowed for by the original agreement which states that this agreement shall be renegotiate if desired by either party". Wilkins and Davies look three months to reply. When they did in May, they said no, and told the unions in the same breath that they could expect layoffs in August 1978.

Because of this, a job meeting of the [unclear: Mangere] Bridge workers decided to take a limited form of direct action, to pressure the company into beginning talks. Sections of the workforce were sent home for a day in turn. The company issued an ultimatum that if the job action wasn't stopped, everyone on the site would be sacked on a week's notice. The workers refused to accept this, and on May 30 they were sacked and locked out.