Talks may end crane row

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33694, 18 November 1974, Page 18

Talks may end crane row

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, November 17. A vital meeting tomorrow may end in a solution to the demarcation dispute which has kept the Railways Department’s slm container crane in Wellington idle for almost two years.

The Federation of Labour will meet representatives of the Wellington Waterside Workers’ Union and the Wellington branch of the Harbour Board employees’ Union in an attempt to decide which union has the right to work the crane.

The F.O.L. was brought into the dispute 10 days ago when the harbour board workers voted to ask the federation to solve the dispute. The long and complicated dispute has taken several new turns since the crane was bought by the National Government during its last term in office. The crane lay idle while the watersiders and the National Union of Railwaymen both claimed the right to work it.

Then came the suggestion that the crane be sold to the Wellington Harbour Board, and leased to the container terminal operator. The demarcation dispute

then swung from the railwaymen to the harbour board workers, with the watersiders still involved.

The Wellington Harbour Board has expressed an inter, est in buying the crane, but at the same time made it quite clear it was not going to buy a demarcation dispute with it. It has refused to talk business until all handling difficulties are sorted out.

The meeting tomorrow will be the first positive step towards solving the problem for some months. In the interim, the crane’s non-use has further accentuated wharf congestion and cargo movement on the Wellington wharves.