WHARF LABOUR DISPUTE

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22269, 7 December 1937, Page 4

WHARF LABOUR DISPUTE

No Settlement At Auckland IDLE SHIPS ACCUMULATE IN PORT (JSBSS ASSOCIATION TKJCOBAM.) AUCKLAND, December 6. No settlement has been reached in the Labour dispute which began on the Auckland waterfront on Thursday. Only those ships on which labour was engaged before the trouble arose are being worked, and some have not their lull complement of labour. The position has been aggravated by the arrival during the week-end of two overseas ships, an island trader, and several coasters. The only call for labour at the Auckland.Waterside Bureau this morning was for the Waiana, but for the third time in succession it met with no response. The Waiana has been declared a preference ship, which means that until the vessel is manned fresh labour cannot be called for any other ship. A meeting was called this morning by the Port of Auckland Shipping and Stevedores* Association, which is handling the position for the employers. After the meeting the following statement was made by Captain R.S.Lewis, chairman of the association: "The position on the waterfront remains the same. At a meeting of the committee of the association this morning it was reaffirmed that, as the rules of the bureau were agreed to both by the employers and the employees, they must be adhered, to. The action of the men engaged for the Waiana for « pan. on Thursday, in accepting their discs and therefore an engagement and then deciding at an unauthorised meeting that they would not turn to until 8 a.m. the following morning, was entirely unconstitutional. This breaking of rules cannot be tolerated." Vessels Involved It cannot be too strongly emphasised for the benefit of the general public that the employers' action is taken as a stand against the unconstitutional measures of what they have every reason to believe is a small section of the members of the Waterside Workers' Union. The vessels at present concerned in the dispute are the New Zealand Shipping Company's passenger liners Rotorua and Rangitata, the HamburgAmerika freighter Gera, the Port Line's Port Hunter, the Union Steam Ship Company's coaster Waiana, the island trader Matua, the Westport Coal Company's collier Canopus, and a number of intercolonial, coastal, and provincial ships. The Rangitata and Rotorua are timetable . ships carrying passengers and mails, and the delay in port may mean that they will experience difficulty in maintaining their schedules. In addition, the Shaw. Savill. and Albion Company's Waipawa and the Port Line's Port Hobart are restricted in their cargo operations through having insufficient gangs. These, together with the Port Chalmers, had engaged a certain amount of labour before the hold-up occurred. To-morrow the Huddart-Parker liner Wanganella is scheduled to arrive from Sydney in the early afternoon, and the British Phosphate Commission's chartered vessel Homeside is to make port with a cargo of phosphates. Partly because of the trouble, the berthing of these new arrivals will be a problem. Those vessels already in port have not been able to get away as soon as was expected. In the case of the Wanganella the present tentative arangement is to berth her in the place occupied by the Rangitata at Queen's Wharf and to transfer the Rangitata to the Kairanga's berth, also at Queen's Wharf. No arrangements have yet been made for the Homeside.

CONFERENCE TO BE HELD SERIOUS VIEW TAKEN BY GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE OF MINISTERS SET UP IFrom Our Parliamentary ReporterJ WELLINGTON, December 6. With a view to reaching a settlement in the dispute which is holding up work on the Auckland waterfront, a conference will be held between representatives of the interested parties to-morrow morning. Until this meeting has been held, according to a statement made by the Minister for Labour (the Hon. H. T. Armstrong), in an interview last evening, no further developments are expected. The position at Auckland is viewed seriously by the Government, and a sub-committee of the Cabinet, consisting of Mr Armstrong, the Minister for Marine (the Hon. P. Fraser), and the Minister for Mines (the Hon. P. C. Webb), has been set up to deal with it. Mr Armstrong stated this evening that Mr W. H. G. Bennett, a representative of the shipping companies, had left Wellington for Auckland by aeroplane to-day, and he himself had endeavoured to make arrangements for the president and secretary of the Auckland Waterside Workers* Union, who were attending a conference at Wanganui, to leave for Auckland this evening. The Minister said he hoped to hear to-morrow the results of the conference which Mr Bennett and others were to hold with the union's representative.