Efforts To Clear Strike Backlog

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32166, 9 December 1969, Page 1

Efforts To Clear Strike Backlog

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, December 8. By early in the New Year the Union Steam Ship Company hopes to dear the backlog of cargo which has built up because of the Wainui dispute.

The firm’s, general traffic manager, Mr C. F. Watson,

could not say today how much cargo had accumulated, but it had earlier been estimated that about 50,000 tons was delayed on each side of the Tasman. “We’re just getting the ships moving as fast as possible,” said Mr Watson in a telephone interview from Wellington. “We’re hoping to overtake the backlog fairly quickly and we’d hope to be on top of the position early in the New Year.”

Mr Watson said the company was not considering obtaining assistance from other lines or chartering ships to help clear the cargo. The dispute had left N.Z. Forest Products, Ltd, with about $750,000 worth of its products awaiting delivery overseas, the managing director of the firm (Mr R. H. Smythe) said today. Most of the products, including about 2700 tons of pulp and 500,000 super feet of timber, are at Mount Maunganui. But large stocks for export were also waiting at Kinleith, said Mr Smythe. He hoped it. would be possible within a day or two to obtaih a clear picture of new ship- . ping schedules. Australian customers were low on stocks and were complaining. A spokesman for U.E.B. Industries. Ltd, which has had large quantities of carpets delayed, said that it hoped to catch up on deliveries soon. “Obviously there has been a delay, but there will be

no permanent harm done to our market in Australia.”