Waterside Workers Support Drivers

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31091, 21 June 1966, Page 16

Waterside Workers Support Drivers

Lyttelton waterside workers would refuse to handle any road transport either discharging or loading from Lyttelton wharves between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. today, said the secretary of the Lyttelton Waterside Workers’ Union (Mr R. Fergus) yesterday.

The union had decided on this action in support of the Canterbury Drivers' Union, whose metropolitan members were holding a two-hour stopwork meeting in the Civic Theatre from 8 a.m., he said. From 800 to 900 drivers in the Christchurch metropolitan area are expected to attend this morning's meeting which stems from a dispute on wages.

Mr Fergus said that Lyttelton watersiders had declared their full support to the Canterbury Drivers’ Union in its efforts to reach a satisfactory wage settlement

The secretary of the Canterbury Drivers’ Union (Mr A. Roberts) yesterday said that essential services, such as those by local bodies, ambulances, buses and taxis, would not be affected by the stoo-work meeting. He said that it had been decided also to exempt Christchurch abattoir trucks catering for the city meat supply,

milk trucks supplying the city and trucks servicing hospitals. Mr Roberts gave dates of similar two-hour stop-work meetings in several other Canterbury districts, each beginning at 8 a.m. They will be at the Rangiora Orange Hall on Monday; the Ashburton R.S.A. Hall, on Wednesday, June 29; the Leeston Picture Theatre Hall, on Monday, July 4, and the Timaru Trades’ Hall, on Wednesday, July 6. The date for the Hawarden-Culverden area stop-work meeting had not yet been decided, but it would be before July 14. Mr Roberts said that drivers attending this morning’s stop-work meeting would be asked to report back to work Immediately it was over. He said the union felt that the only way to inform members was by stop-work meetings.