Benmore Workers’ Complaints

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29992, 29 November 1962, Page 14

Benmore Workers’ Complaints

A vote of no-confidence in the works superintendent at the Benmore power project (Mr W. Shellock) was passed at a special meeting of the Benmore branch of the New Zealand Workers Union attended by more than 400 members on Tuesday night, said the South Island secretary of the union (Mr W. A. Dempster) last evening. Only one member voted against the motion of no-con-fidence, Mr Dempster said. It was also resolved that the transfer of Mr Shellock to another works project be asked for. He said that the executive unanimously passed a resolution ‘‘strongly criticising’’ the project engineer (Mr A. V. Taylor). The executive unanimously decided that the local union would not negotiate complaints with Mr Taylor, or his administration or supervisory staff until all present complaints and matters in dispute had been satisfactorily settled.

In the meantime. Mr Dempster said all issues on the project would be dealt with by the national secretary of the union Mr H. J. Allen in Wellington, through the South Island office of the union, in Christchurch. Mr Allen would take up all future issues with the heads of the Ministry of Works in Wellington. “On Monday, a deputation of five men from the union will leave for Wellington to put our case to the Ministry of Works heads and Ministers of the Crown.” he said.

"Our union is proud of its record of working within the terms of the Industrial and Conciliation and Arbitration Act without strikes or long stoppages of any kind,” said Mr Dempster. “But at Benmore our members have reached the end of their tether because a housing health hazard has not been rectified after five years of complaints, and because minor, day-to-day, on-the-job difficulties are not being ironed out by the Ministry of Works staff deputed to attend to them. “We know that this is an inopportune time to take direct action because of the national economy, and the men do not want to be out at Christmas, but unless practical action is taken promptly at top level we may be forced into direct action at Benmore—and it would be supported on a national basis by our members on other jobs,” Mr Dempster said. He said that the main, and most long-standing, complaint of the union members, and their wives and families, was concerned with the heating and “sweating” of the houses at the project village, Otematata. “On the site, before the homes were built five years ago, it was agreed between the Ministry of Works and union representatives that the homes should be heated with electricity for a trial period and that, if this proved unsatisfactory, some-

tiling would be done about it.

“Sweating in tihe houses means that they are perpetually damp and a continuous health hazard in the winter. Fifteen months ago. the Minister of Works (Mr Goosman) on the site promised tihait the problem would be tackled. Another winter has gone and one is approaching, but still nothing practical has been done.” Mr Dempster said that in the last 15 months hundreds of reasonable requests about work on the job conditions and methods, had been made by union delegates through the proper channels, but very few had been met.