Protest By Crew

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29909, 24 August 1962, Page 12

Protest By Crew

The master of the African Reefer (Captain A. Ahigreen) said yesterday that he and his officers and crew wished to protest against the vessel being called a “cheap labour ship” by the president of the Federation of Labour (Mr F. P. Walsh).

A spokesman for the crew (Mr S. Madsen), the ship’s donkeyman, said the crew felt they had been insulted by being called “cheap labour.” He said the crew of the African Reefer were paid about 10 per cent, more a month under Danish articles than a New Zealand crew. They also had two extra days off a month. No bananas were unloaded from the Danish motor vessel African Reefer yesterday. Four trucks stood by at the head of No. 7 berth to carry bananas, and four cranes and seven tally clerks were ready for work throughout the day. but there were no watersiders available.

The secretary of the Seamen’s Union (Mr T. Martin), the secretary of the Lyttelton Watersiders Union (Mr F. J. Balchan), and the secretary of the Port Employers Association (Mr W. F. Sillars) had no comment to make yesterday afternoon beyond saying that the dispute was being discussed in Wellington. The supply of bananas in Christchurch was finished, said Mr H. E. Radley, a fruit and produce merchant, yesterday. Supplies from the North Island by the rail-ferry steamer, Aramoana, which had reached Christchurch towards the end of last week, were now exhausted and merchants were waiting for the cargo in the African Reefer.

Mr Radley said that bananas could only be held in storage, aboard ships or in warehouses at temperatures between 53 degrees and 70 degrees. If the bananas were held at a temperature below 53 degrees they chilled and would not ripen. They ripened slowly at 53 degrees and more quickly at temperatures up to 70 degrees.

Bananas could not be held for a long time and the cargo had already been in the African Reefer for some time as the ship had already called at Dunedin. If the bananas were not unloaded before the week-end the losses because of over-ripe fruit would be “terrific,” Mr Radley said.

“The losses will already be substantial as the bananas will be ripening at different rates and the sorting of the over-ripe from the good fruit will be an unhappy task,” he said.

The banana-eating competitions for children at the New Zealand Industries Fair are continuing because the organisers, by good management and good fortune, obtained a substantial supply from the market on Monday.