Federation Supports Waterfront Stoppage

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28629, 4 July 1958, Page 10

Federation Supports Waterfront Stoppage

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, July 3. The federation of Labour is giving full support to a day and a half stoppage of work by the Auckland Cargo Workers’ Union. The stoppage is ii* protest over a recent decision of the Waterfront Industry Tribunal allowing the Colonial Sugar Refining company to use its own workers, instead of cargo workers, for the unloading of bulk sugar at Chelsea. The decision to stop work from tonight until Monday morning was made at a lunch-hour meeting today. More than 1000 cargo workers attended. The president of the union (Mr E. Isbey) reported on discussions he and the union’s two other delegates had had at a meeting of the North Island executive.

The meeting, according to a union spokesman, voted almost unanimously for stop-work action. The meeting also declared “black” any work connected with the Colonial Sugar company. Mr T. E. Skinner, president of the Auckland Trades Council, said later that the stoppage had the “full support” of the executive of the Federation of Labour. He would discuss the dispute with the president of the federation (Mr F. P. Walsh) in Wellington on Tuesday. The Auckland branch of the Port Employers’ Association met

this afternoon and issued a statement deploring what it termed “irresponsible developments” on the Auckland waterfront. If these developments were allowed to progress, the association claimed, the only result could be a return to the chaotic conditions which existed on the waterfront before 1951. The dispute over the discharge of bulk sugar had been heard by the tribunal, which had given the union a second full hearing after it had withdrawn from the original hearing. The association added: “Now that the tribunal has given a ruling which is not to the liking of the union, the union is trying to upset the tribunal’s decision by the present irresponsible resort to direct action. “This is not the first occasion within recent months when the Auckland Cargo Workers’ Union has taken direct action. If ttyere is to be a return to disruptive tactics on the waterfront, at great cost to the general public, then the public should know that the responsibility rests with the union leaders.