WATERSIDERS STOP AT LYTTELTON

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31236, 7 December 1966, Page 22

WATERSIDERS STOP AT LYTTELTON

About 150 waterside workers stopped work at Cashin Quay and on the Wainui at 4.30 p.m. yesterday. The stoppage will continue today while negotiations between the Waterside Workers’ Union and the Port Employers’ Association are in progress.

The secretary of the Lyttelton Waterside Workers’ Union (Mr R. K. Fergus) said last night that before Cashin Quay was used, all port unions—the Harbour Board Workers’ Union, the Foremen, Stevedores and Permanent Han d s Union, the Drivers’ Union, Tally Clerks’ Union and the Waterside Workers’ Union agreed with the Federation of Labour to the areas of work to be covered by each individual union. The port employers had provoked the present dispute by employing a member of an outside organisation to write up the destination of railway trucks, a job which had previously been performed by waterside workers throughout the Port of Lyttelton, including Cashin Quay. Mr Fergus said the dispute was a most serious one in that it was a matter of coverage of work. Representatives of the port unions had discussed the dispute and unanimously agreed that this work was properly the domain of watersider workers.

“This particular claim is outside the scope of the agreement, and if granted would further increase the cost of receiving and delivering at

the transit sheds, a cost which would have to be met by the community,” the secretary of the Port Employers’ Association (Mr J. Twomey) said. The disputed area was a private siding, and the particullar job could not be compared with loading railway waggons

directly from the ship’s side, Once the delivery note had been signed, the receiving and delivering companies were no longer responsible for the cargo, he said. “This particular job is not required, and would only involve unnecessary costs.”