Government Statement Likely To-day

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26398, 17 April 1951, Page 6

Government Statement Likely To-day

APPEAL TO “SEAGULLS” AND CASUAL WORKERS From Out Own Reporter WELLINGTON, April 16. It is expected that the Minister of Labour (Mr W. Sullivan) will announce to-morrow a new formula for dealing with the strike. His statement is expected to cover decisions reached by the Cabinet when it held a special meeting on Friday. It is believed that Mr Sullivan will appeal to outside labour to man the waterfront. It is now conceded that the Government’s call to watersiders to fill in registration forms and return them to the Department of Labour has not drawn the response expected, and the Government, after having given the men a week in which to respond, has been forced to adopt other measures. New Zealand’s ports have now been idle for nine weeks, and hundreds of thousands of tons of shipping have been held up for much of that time. The actual cost of this delay and its effects upon the economy of the whole country can probably be measured in millions of pounds. The next move, it is believed, will be directed towards getting “seagull” and casual labour to take over, together with such other workers as are willing to register as members of new unions.

The Government is expected to take steps soon to curb the activities of organisations responsible for pamphlets, leaflets, and other cyclostyled documents which are flooding Wellington and other ports. In Wellington, these publications, “issued by the Wellington Waterside Workers’ Union,” according to the credit line printed on most of them, now include a daily bulletin. Ample authority exists in the Emergency Regulations for Government action against publishers of such documents.