Waterside unions to meet over dispute

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32788, 13 December 1971, Page 18

Waterside unions to meet over dispute

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, December 12.

The Wellington watersiders’ stoppage is threatening to snowball into a national dispute which could bring the New Zealand waterfront to a standstill.

Auckland watersiders will stop work tomorrow morning to discuss the Wellington situation, and meetings in other New Zealand ports are expected to take place throughout the week.

In Wellington, watersiders who have been on strike since Thursday, will meet at 7.30 a.m. tomorrow. However, they will not return to work as expected because port employers have suspended the watersiders until Wednesday as a disciplinary action over the strike. This means that while the

meeting is in progress, there will be no work on interisland roll-on ferries, which the watersiders continued to work during their stoppage. The watersiders are expected to consider further direct action in protest against the suspension. The president of the Waterside Workers’ Federation (Mr J. E. Napier), said in Wellington tonight that the federation had no firm intention at this stage to officially turn the dispute into a national affair. But he confirmed that watersiders in all New Zealand ports would be meeting on, as yet, undecided dates. “The dispute might well be-

; come a national one,” >he said. At present individual > watersiders’ unions in each port are autonomous, and i any action taken is on an’ individual basis. The dispute which caused the Wellington workers to walk off the job on Thurs- ■ day, centres around a union ■ claim for increased wages. UNDERTAKING The unions claim that employers have not met an undertaking they made last year to review wages in - August of this year. ’ Mr Napier said this under- * taking was given because it ■ was accepted that watersiders had not achieved traditional relativity when the last award was negotiated. “Now the employers are welching .on the agreement,” he said. Mr Napier did not reveal the size of the increase the unions were claiming. Port employers have said they are prepared to grant the watersiders a 2.2 per cent increase which, with the 4.8 per cent cost of living order, brings the total increase in wages to the Government’s 7 per cent guideline. They consider that an increase in excess of 7 per cent would be unjustified.. The stoppage by Auckland watersiders tomorrow morning will cause 20 ships to be left idle. , Members of the Auckland Waterside Workers’ Union are reported to be “strongly sympathetic” to the position of the Wellington workers. PERTURBED Mr Napier said he understood that watersiders throughout the country were “perturbed’'* at the situation. Industrial relations on the New Zealand waterfront have , been deteriorating over the last few weeks with reports of unofficial stoppages and ■ go-slows at several ports. ' Some observers believe ; this action illustrates the dissatisfaction of watersiders with the lack of progress in obtaining a wage review.