Dispute May Stop All Auckland Trains

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31775, 4 September 1968, Page 16

Dispute May Stop All Auckland Trains

(New Zealand Press Association; AUCKLAND, September 3. Unless the parties in the Auckland railways dispute reached agreement before midday, no rail services would leave Auckland tomorrow, the district traffic manager for the department at Auckland (Mr S. G. Muir) said tonight.

Trains arriving at Auckland would be severely curtailed but services from Wellington would arrive.

Shunting engines would be in use until tomorrow evening, which would enable goods arriving until then to be handled.

Every point in the North Island sent locomotives to Auckland but if they could not be serviced they would hgve to remain, he said. The dispute began on Monday when about 100 members of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants and the Railway Tradesmen’s Association at the Parnell and Westfield workshops walked off their jobs in an effort to force the department to take action over an alleged assault of a truck driver by a workshop foreman. A meeting of the two unions involved this morning called for a general inquiry into the incident and for the foreman concerned to be removed from the two depots, pending the result of the inquiry. If these demands were met the men would return to work

The meeting said that the statement by the Acting General Manager of Railways (Mr J. H. O. Tiller) on Monday was not factual as reported. “We are not demanding the foreman’s dismissal; nor was the dispute caused by

just an argument. This assault took place some time ago and all avenues of negotiation have been explored," it said.