Tricked By Rain

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31221, 19 November 1966, Page 1

Tricked By Rain

The weather tricked trade union officials yesterday afternoon. It induced them to withdraw temporarily their picket on the banned job at the Fletcher Construction Company’s contract at the International Harvester Company site in Blenheim Road.

When the downpour came at lunch-time officials of the Canterbury Carpenters’ Union believed, not without justification, that they could safely withdraw their picket for the rest of the afternoon.

The area was flooded, water a foot deep lapping over the median strip in Blenheim road. But two hours later, 10 men, including plumbers.

were back on the Fletcher job, working furiously. A foreman said that the bottom of the job remained dry all the time.

Two of the picket-duty men, the union secretary (Mr R. J. Pitcairn) and organiser (Mr J. Clough), had returned to the Trades Hall. Mr Pitcairn’s car was immobilised by water, and had to be towed away. The picket will be resumed at 7.30 a.m. on Monday.

The picket was imposed in a dispute over the workers’ demand for the same conditions and rate of pay as the company’s employees in Auckland and Wellington.