Mount Maunganui Watersiders Back

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30981, 10 February 1966, Page 5

Mount Maunganui Watersiders Back

(New Zealand Press Association) TAURANGA, Februaxy 9. Work on the waterfront at Mount Maunganui returned to norma) today after a directive by the Port Conciliation Committee yesterday afternoon had ended the five-day dispute over safety conditions of work on the Union Steam Ship Company’s freighter Koranui.

The committee at 4 p.m. ordered a gang of 15 men who had been working the No. 3 hatch of the 528540 n freighter when the dispute arose to resume work Earlier in the afternoon, five of the six gangs who walked off the Koranui on Friday morning had resumed work on the vessel after a meeting with their union executive.

Another six gangs, totalling 90 men, who were on a twoday penalty after they refused engagements when called to work the freighter on Monday, resumed work today. The gang on the No. 3 hatch was directed to resume work yesterday after the committee had found that the Mount Maunganui and Tauranga Waterside Workers Union’s allegation of unsafe working practice on the Koranui were unfounded. Mr A. V. Hardaker, secretary of the Port Employers’ Association, said today that “the ruling of a Marine Department inspector and the committee’s inquiry established that the union’s allegations of unsafe working practice and inadequate manning on the freighter were unfounded.” Mr W. Stephens, the union’s walking delegate, said i today that the Marine Department had approved the super-

imposing of cargo pallets on nets, which was necessary to offset the inadequate construction of the pallets as lifting units. The department’s inspector had also confirmed that a directive given earlier to the company in respect of the construction of pallets had not, at the time of the dispute, been carried out by the company, Mr Stephens said.