Railway Tradesmen On Strike In Auckland

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31774, 3 September 1968, Page 1

Railway Tradesmen On Strike In Auckland

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, September 2.

Almost all Auckland rail services will be at a standstill after 3 pjn. tomorrow —and 6000 commuters will have to find alternative transport—after a sudden strike this afternoon by Railways Department tradesmen.

This was because the Railways Department has reprimanded, but is standing behind, a foreman at the Parnell locomotive depot, Auckland, whom the railway unions want transferred or dismissed, because of an alleged assault on a lorry driver.

The dispute led to a walk-out by some 100 servicing staff, which will disrupt suburban and long - distance freight and passenger services.

Railways Road Services are unaffected at this stage. The District Traffic Manager for the department at Auckland (Mr S. G. Muir) said tonight that only Parnell and Westfield—workshops responsible for the maintenance of diesel engines and locomotives —had so far been affected. “We don’t know how long the strike will last,” he said, “or whether it will spread." Trains would come into Auckland as usual tomorrow, he said, but any whose 24 working hours expired there would not be serviced. The strike would have an effect on passenger services between Auckland and Wellington, but the main-trunk schedules would be kept running as long as possible, said Mr Muir. Wellington Statement

Members of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants and of the Railway

Tradesmen’s Association em ployed at the Parnell and Westfield diesel depots stopped work in protest against the department’s refusal to accede to the society’s demand that the foreman be removed from his present post, said a Railways Department statement from Wellington. The acting-General Manager of Railways (Mr J. H. O. Tiller) said tonight that the dispute arose from an allegation that a lorry driver had been grabbed by his foreman during an argument, and “pushed back a pace.” After an investigation, the department did not accept that there were grounds for taking the action demanded by the union. “Appropriate action has been taken by the department, including a warning to the foreman that he displayed a lack of judgment, and that the consequences could be more serious if he again came under notice in similar circumstances,” said Mr Tiller. The secretary of the Otahuhu branch of the A.S.R.S. (Mr C. Duffy) said tonight that the strike was called because the Railways Department was not prepared to remove the foreman whc

had figured in the allegations “If the position had been in reverse, and the worker had assaulted the officer, he would have been immediately dismissed by the department,” he said. This was the third such complaint against the foreman involved, and on each occasion the controlling officer had been informed, Mr Duffy said. In Wellington, Mr Tiller said: “I regret very much that what should have been treated as a domestic matter has now been magnified out of all proportion by the A.S.R.S. and the R.T.A., to the extent that it could have serious effects on commerce and industry.”