Pickets At Union Company’s Berth

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32116, 11 October 1969, Page 14

Pickets At Union Company’s Berth

(N.Z.P.A. staff Correspondent/ MELBOURNE, October 10. Members of the Transport Workers’ Union picketed the Union Steam Ship. Company’s roll-on container berth in Melbourne today.

The pickets appeared after a decision by the union to ban deliveries of cargo to the berth for the Tasman freighter Marama. The Marama is due in Melbourne on Monday from Wellington. The ban is the latest move in an inter-union dispute between the transport workers and the Federated Clerks’ Union over rights to pack and tally cargo destined for the ship, Mr J. Won-all, Australian manager of the Union company, said the ban meant that the ship would probably sail for Auckland next week with only the 1200 tons cargo that was already on the wharf. The Marama has a capacity of about 5000 tons. “The dispute between the unions is utterly frustrating,” Mr Worrali said. “It is embarrassing us. We have got a ship and a regular schedule but the shippers are not able to use it.” He said the company was trying to untangle the problem through the Conciliation ahd Arbitration Commission. It is expected that the dispute will be considered by the commission in Sydney early next week. , a Compromise agreements covered the Marama on its first two trips but no solution has been reached in subsequent talks on its third and succeeding voyages. Mr I. Hodgson, assistant Federal secretary of the Transport Workers’ Union, said today members of his union were quite prepared to deliver and pick up cargo from the Union Company’s terminal if the company

would accept deliveries of all cargo. “The company is declining to accept cargo from consolidating depots not approved by the clerks’ union,” Mr Hodgson said. Under the terms of an agreement reached between the company and the clerks in June the company favoured cargo being packed in depots employing members of the clerks’ union, he said. Transport companies with freightforwarding depots employing transport workers did not accept this.