Ruling Sought On Use Of Bluff Port Equipment

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30275, 30 October 1963, Page 12

Ruling Sought On Use Of Bluff Port Equipment

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, October 29. Points raised in an application to the Waterfront Industry Tribunal by the South Island Waterside Workers’ Federation were of vital interest to harbour boards throughout New Zealand, Mr W. J. Keinp said today in the Supreme Court at Wellington. The Full Court, comprising the Chief Justice (Sir Harold Barrowclough), Mr Justice Hutchison and Mr Justice McGregor, has been asked to determine a disputed point of law relating to the provisions of the Waterfront Industry Act, 1953, in connexion with cargo-handling work at the port of Bluff.

Mr Kemp, with him Mr J. B. Stevenson, appeared for the Harbours Association and the Southland Harbour Board.

Mr G. L. McLeod appeared for the Harbour Board Employees’ Union, Mr C. A. Hamer for the Port Employers’ Association and Mr C. H. Arndt for the South Island Waterside Workers’ Federation and the Bluff Waterfront Workers’ Union. The court has been asked to determine whether the Waterfront Industry Tribunal has jurisdiction to make any principal order upon, or in respect of, a clause in an application by the South Island Waterside Workers’ Federation to the tribunal for a supplementary principal order for conditions of work at the port of Bluff to replace a previously-existing principal order of May 21, 1958. Mr Kemp, in his opening submissions, said the Southland Harbour Board had almost completed new harbour wharf sheds and facilities at Bluff. The main points at issue

were whether waterside workers at Bluff were entitled to operate mechanical equipment on the wharves to load and unload ships and whether they were entitled to operate mechanical equipment to deliver cargo from the ship’s side to the shed. “We say watersiders are entitled to place cargo on the trailers and take it off the hooks, and that the driver of the tractor that pulls the trailer into the shed should be, and indeed at the moment is, a harbour board employee,” said Mr Kemp. “We say this is board equipment and the board is entitled to have its own drivers operating that equipment in the process of transporting or conveying that

cargo from the ship’s side into the shed."

Mr Kemp said the points raised in the application to the tribunal were of vital interest to the Southland Harbour Board and to other boards throughout New Zealand which the Harbours Association represented. The question of the jurisdiction of the Waterfront Industry Tribunal was raised when the application in question was made by the South Island Waterside Workers’ Federation and, by consent, all parties agreed to refer to the Supreme Court for decision the disputed points ot law as to the jurisdiction of the tribunal.

The hearing will continue tomorrow.