Tanker Crews Hold 48-Hour Stoppage

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31832, 9 November 1968, Page 16

Tanker Crews Hold 48-Hour Stoppage

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, November 8. The Seamen’s Union is to call a 24-hour strike at midnight on Sunday, but about 30 seamen aboard two tankers at Whangarei began their own 48-hour stoppage at 5.30 p.m. on Thursday.

The crews of the tankers Athelviscount and Hamilton will be the only seamen who will not stop on Sunday. The national stoppage has been called to "hurry up” a proposed pension and welfare scheme for seamen. The secretary of the Auckland Seamen’s Union (Mr D. Harcus) said today that discussions had been continuing for three years, but the scheme appeared no closer. All other shipping movements, including those of the inter-island ferries, will halt until midnight on Monday.

Mr Harcus said the tanker crews’ stoppage was designed as a protest to get the Government and oil companies to provide another oil tanker manned by a New Zealand crew for the coastal trade. The Athelviscount and Hamilton, which both carry “white” fuel, such as kerosene, are the only tankers manned by New Zealand seamen.

Four years ago shipowners had agreed to work out a schedule for a “black" tanker to carry diesel oil, but nothing further had emerged, said Mr Harcus. He said that during the last nine month, 422,000 tons of diesel oil had been carried by overseas tankers on the coastal trade.