Minister meets water siders

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32563, 24 March 1971, Page 10

Minister meets water siders

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, March 22. A meeting between waterside workers and the Minister of Labour (Mr Marshall) about Wellington’s container dispute today lasted for more than three hours, and ended with a “no comment” from both Government and union sources.

The meeting was called at Mr Marshall’s request to consider the ban by the watersiders on the consolidation of containers in offwharf depots.

The dispute involves a claim by watersiders for waterfront wages and conditions in off-wharf container consolidating depots. Wellington watersiders imposed a complete ban on consolidated containers and carriers associated with freight forwarding firms after negotiations with freight forwarders broke down more than a month ago. Since then, watersiders at Auckland and Lyttelton have banned containers handled by Alltrans, one of the major freight forwarding firms in the country. Thomas Nationwide Transport, the Australian company seeking to take over the Union Steam Ship Company, is a major shareholder in Alltrans. Several thousand tons of container cargo are now held up because of the ban.

Abattoir dispute The Auckland City Council will continue to seek a satisfactory solution to the abattoir dispute the chairman of the council’s property and health committee (Mr W. M. • Tongue) said today. ; After a meeting of the com--1 mittee had considered the 11- ; week-old pause in mutton ■ killing, Mr Tongue indicated ; that there were no plans for • an immediate shut-down of ■ the works.

The mutton chain was stopped at the works when 31 butchers were dismissed after a walk-out which left 900 lambs in a distressed state. Thirty-one of the lambs died. Unconditional return After a week-long dispute about shifts, 105 Glenbrook steel workers made an unconditional return today. They insisted on working a sevenday shift, while the management required a six-day shift The men were turned away from work when they threatened to work the shift they sought. They made representations to the Auckland Engineers’ Union at a meeting on Saturday, with the district super- . intendent of the Labour Department (Mr A. B. Tuck) presiding and then decided to work the six-day shift

Blood unit—The North Canterbury blood transfusion servce’s mobile unit which will be at the Royal New Zealand Air Force base at Wigram tomorrow to reestablish a blood donor panel, will accept blood from persons aged between 16 arid ‘ 60, not 16 and 20 as reported in “The Press” yesterday.