WORK STOPPAGES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 59, 10 March 1944, Page 6

WORK STOPPAGES

MINES AND WHARVES

"AN INTOLERABLE POSITION"

(By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter. 1

WELLINGTON, this day

The theory that under Government control there would be no more strikes by miners, and that all would be well, had not worked out in practice, declared Mr. Sutherland (Nat., Hauraki) in the Address-in-Replv debate in the House of Representatives last night. He was one who believed that the individual effort of the miners had never been less, and that view was supported by the recent statement by the Controller of Mines, Mr. C. H. Benney, who had said that, generally speaking, there had been no increase in output per miner per shift worked.

There were many miners on sine die adjournments from military service, said Mr. Sutherland. He expressed the view that, if when such men went en strike or went slow, they were put into uniform overnight, it would be found that that would have a good effect. Referring to recent stoppages on the waterfront at Auckland and Wellington, Mr. Sutherland said that the Minister of Labour, Mr. Webb, had claimed that under the Waterfront Control Commission all would be well. It seemed to him that what had been done was to create some fine jobs at £1250 a year, one of which was held by Mr. James Roberts, "the uncrowned king ot New Zealand." Suggestion of a Feud He had been told that the complaint about the position of a gangway in Auckland had really come about through a feud started through one of the waterfront controllers and the .president of the Auckland Waterside Workers' Union. Thousands of pounds had been lost over the hold-up, and he thought something should have been done a little sooner to settle the dispute. The statements that had been made about the quicker turning round of ships amounted to another fallacy. It was accounted for by the extra shifts worked, centralisation of shipping and by working the clock round. Mr. Sutherland claimed that under the new system the cost of handling cargo in the period from 1932 to 1942 had risen from 2/10 per ton to 8/4 a ton, and that the pace of work had decreased from 18 tons loaded per hour to 12 tons an hour. He did not think the grievance in Auckland over the position of a gangway was a right thing. At the time when men were quibbling over a gangway the New Zealand forces in the Pacific were jumping off barges with packs and rifles and facing a barrage of Japanese fire. The position was intolerable. There were no strikes in the Army. The recent situation when several Auckland men claimed money for work they had not done, which was condoned by the Waterfront Control Commission, was all wrong, said Mr. Sutherland. A man should not be paid for work he did not do and the matter should be rectified.