Marine Engineers’ Pay Talks Fail

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31196, 21 October 1966, Page 15

Marine Engineers’ Pay Talks Fail

(\'ew Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, October 19. A strike which could paralyse most of the country’s major shipping seems likely following four hours of fruitless talks between harbour board officials and members of the Institute of Marine and Power Engineers in Auckland today.

For months now 42 tug and ' dredge engineers throughout ! the country have been negotiating through the union with ; harbour board managements , for wage increases of between £2 10s and £5 a week. The ; boards offered between £1 10s ■ and £1 17s lid. A committee of investiga-h tion. under the chairmanship! of the Auckland Conciliation • Commissioner, Mr C. L.!

Hunter, discussed the whole situation today. > The result was deadlock and Mr C. Harnett, national secretary of the institute, said the next step would be a ballot of members. It was) almost certain that members] would vote to stop work. | i “I can see no alternative at ;the moment,” he said. I “We came away from the j ■ meeting very disappointed.! | Our people felt that for some|

I years we had lost margins and | we felt that even if we had inot obtained all we had lost [we should have established some improvement. We did not get any at all. We just got a repeat of what they said before.” The men claim that they should be paid a percentage above such people as fitters. But these margins have decreased considerably over the years, they say. Fitters in Auckland were recently given a rise and now. some earn more than the I engineers. I A harbour boards’ spokes- ! man said tonight: “We did not i reach agreement. We suggested that the matter should | be referred to an independi ent chairman for a decision (which would be accepted by

both parties, but the engineers were not amenable to this.”