Wharf Dismissals Called ‘Lock-Out’

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31168, 19 September 1966, Page 1

Wharf Dismissals Called ‘Lock-Out’

<Niw Zealand Press Association) WELLINTON, September 18.

Waterside workers will meet tomorrow morning to discuss the dismissal of nearly 2000 men at Wellington and Mount Maunganui because of disputes which have paralysed shipping in the two ports.

The men stopped work on Friday over allegations of unsafe working conditions and were told they would be sacked.

Mr W. L. Garbutt, president of the Wellington Amalgamated Watersiders’ Union, said tonight that he considered the dismissals amounted to a lock-out by the port employers. But employers and union leaders were hopeful that the disputes could be confined and would not grow into a

repetition of the bitter 1951 waterfront crisis. A union official said that unless the men voted to return to work the union would be prepared for talks with the employers tomorrow afternoon. Two ships, the collier Kokiri and the coaster Konanda, arrived in Wellington today to join the 12 vessels already held up by the stoppage. Mr V. P. Blakeley, deputy chairman of the Port Employers’ Association, said tonight that any move to spread the hold-up to other ports was up to the union.

“I hope that at the other ports they will have more common sense than to get involved and will see there is no future in this kind of conduct,” he said. Mr E. Isbey, president of the Auckland Waterside Workers’ Union, said today that the employers’ decision to ffiake Mount Maunganui waterside workers sign documents before allowing them to go back to work appeared to be an attempt to extend the strike. "My view la that the shipowners have acted rather hastily on a safety dispute. By having men sign documents before getting back to work it appears as though em. ployers are utilising this issue and extending It instead of repairing it," he said. The dispute affecting 400 workers at Mount Maunganui is over the handling of winches aboard two Japanese ships, the Kaisei Maru and the Seiyo Maru- The men say it is dangerous for one man to control them. They say three are needed. Mr T. E. Skinner, president of the Federation of Labour, said the federation had not yet been brought into the disputes. He would be in Wellington for two or three days and he would be keeping in touch with the consultations.