'No pressure on union'

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32798, 24 December 1971, Page 3

'No pressure on union '

(From Our Own Reporter) NELSON, Dec. 23. No pressure had been brought to bear on the Nelson union by its national body to stop work on Tuesday, the president of the Nelson Waterside Workers’ Union (Mi* K. C. Thomas) said today.

“We held a meeting on Tuesday morning, and in a secret ballot the members, by a substantial majority, voted in favour of the one-day protest stoppage,” said Mr Thomas. The stoppage was a protest by the union against the failure of the port employers to

honour their wage agreement, he said. “It seems strange that the Wellington union and the Nelson union received the same penalty of two days, when the stoppage was of three days duration in Wellington and only one day in Nelson,” said Mr Thomas. “I challenge Mr A. K. Gellaty. the president of the Nel-’ son Port Employers’ Association, to denv that his association was not ordered to im-

pose the penalty by the Wellington head office of the New Zealand Port Employers’ Association. "So who is acting under pressure? The Nelson Port Employers. And who conducted the secret ballot? Not the’ port employers,” Mr Thomas said.. Nelson watersiders reported for work at 7 a.m. yesterday, despite the two-day penalty imposed on them. Normal work will resume on Friday at 7 a.m. “My union accepts responsibility for delaying vessels for one day only. Had we resumed work at 7 a.m. on Wednesday, all vessels working at the time of the stoppage could have completed loading and would have sailed before Christmas. “However, the penalty has altered this, and I must place the full responsibility on the local port employers for bowing to pressure when they did not want to do so,” said Mr Thomas.