ON THE WHARVES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 70, 23 March 1940, Page 8

ON THE WHARVES.

The waterside union is apparently prepared to put the loading of the foodships upon which Britain's war effort so largely depends into second place well behind its own demands for special privileges and award interpretations agreeable to its members. Owing to a very secondrate dispute which originated when there was no such urgency as exists to-daj-, the union has set its face against supplying labour for either inward or outward cargo on Easter Monday on three overseas ships, which must therefore be quite needlessly delayed. The use of a national emergency to enforce their own way in what after all is a very minor matter is hardly what one expects from a patriotic body of men working under a Government of its own choiee. Mr. Price has been made controller of work on the wharves, but he has no power to alter or vary an award, and is unable to enforce work on Easter Monday in the face of union opposition. But if every available opportunity cannot be taken, under existing conditions, of keeping the • life-stream of Empire moving, then some more effective method, some greater degree of authority to the controller, is essentia], or there will be a rapid return to the unsatisfactory conditions of the late past.