WATERFRONT CONTROL

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26560, 24 October 1951, Page 8

WATERFRONT CONTROL

LABOUR ALLOCATION EVIDENCE BEFORE ROYAL COMMISSION (Naw Zealand Preee Association) AUCKLAND. October '23. Evidence for and against the abolition of the Waterfront Industry Commission was heard* by the Royal Com? mission on the Waterfront Industry when it sat to-day. The first witness, Mr R. J. Forman, deputy chairman of the Cargo Control Committee, said that after 40 years’ experience on the Auckland waterfront he considered shipping companies were the right people to control and administer the labour they employ. Direct relations between employers end employees, ship owners and watersiders, were desirable. There had been a tendency for matters of control to become cumbersome and out of hand through the presence of the commission as a third party, he added. In the past, too, there had been instances of pressure exerted on the commission’s labour bureau by the old union. Questioned on this point by Mr T. Bloodworth, a member of the commission, Mr Forman said the old watersiders* union had sometimes made a decision and notified the commission, but the shipping companies, which would be most affected by the decision, would not; be notified. Mr Forman said he would like to see a return to the old system under which shipping companies were allowed to select labour. At present there was less incentive for a man to work his best. In his experience, Mr Forman told the commission, allegations that shipping companies had been responsible for over-engagement of labour were not justified. Captain Robert Everett Price, chairman of the Waterfront Industry Commission during the war, said that the allocation of labour should not be left to individual shipping companies to jockey for advantage. The bureau system was the most satisfactory method, but an overhaul of classifications at some ports was long overdue. As the shipping companies and workers’ unions had seldom been able to settle differences and were no more likely to succeed in future, some other independent authority, appointed by the Government, with a wide knowledge of cargo working should control the industry. The present form of commission control substantially met the need, and had proved its worth.