Rail Workers Suspended

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32219, 11 February 1970, Page 1

Rail Workers Suspended

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, February 10. The Railways Department intervened swiftly in a rolling strike by carpenters, painters and trimmers at the Otahuhu railway workshops this afternoon.

Within an hour of the strike beginning, three men were suspended for failing to fill positions left vacant by the strikers. Soon after another three men were suspended for the same reason. The men are demanding the right to bargain directly with the department for wage! rates. They claim that the present ruling rates survey system has caused them to drop further and further behind award rates in outside trades. In spite of the suspensions the workers voted unanimously at a meeting later in the afternoon in favour of continuing the strike. The rolling strike is de-

(signed gradually to bring (work in the yards to a halt while affecting the wages of I as few of the men as possible. The secretary of the Otahuhu branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (Mr S. C. Duffy) said tonight that three men in key positions were taken off the job by the society this afternoon. [ The Railways Department immediately ordered three other men to take their place, and suspended them when they refused to do so. The same procedure was followed with the next three men. After that, the department made no further attempt to fill the vacancies. Mr Duffy said that the same key positions would remain vacant tomorrow. Unless some agreement was reached blockages would build up and all work would come to a stop within a day or two. He said his society was prepared to carry on the strike, which involves 141 men, indefinitely. The suspensions might inflame the situation and spread the strike to 870 members of the Railway Tradesmen’s Association in Otahuhu. he said.