Stewards stop ferries from noon today

Press, 21 July 1976, Page 1

Stewards stop ferries from noon today

Inter-island ferries will not run for a day from noon today, cutting the shipping link for the second time in a month.

A 24-hour stoppage called by the Cooks and Stewards’ Union yesterday will mean that there will be no Cook Strait ferries from noon today until noon tomorrow. A spokesman for the Railways Department said that the stoppage would affect tlie Arahanga as well as the passenger ferries Aramoana and Aranui. The Rangatira sendees from Wellington tonight and from Lyttelton tomorrow night have also been cancelled. The Rangatira will resume her run at 8 p.m. tomorrow from Wellington to Lyttelton and will sail to Wellington at 9 a.m. on Friday. A Railways spokesman in Christchurch said that there was no time to make any changes about freight, since most freight for today’s sailings was already delivered and ready for loading. Today it will accept perishable and other goods for sailings from tomorrow onwards. He said that there was no time to let people know about the ferries, but that passengers on this morning’s train to Picton would

be told before departure that there were no ferries after noon.

The manager of the Union Travel Company (Mr E. L. McFerran) said bookings on the ferries were light at this time of year, but even so there had been no time to notify people of the stoppage.

The ferries did not run at the end of last month for two days because of a two-day strike by railway and other employees in protest against the Government wage regulations. The Shipping Corporation’s Coastal Trader will be delayed at Lyttelton by the stoppage, and the Union Company’s Maheno could possibly be delayed waiting for the Coastal Trader to vacate the berth. The Union Company’s Hawea, already delayed at Wellington with engine trouble, is expected to be further delayed by the stoppage. The stoppage involves only cooks and stewards working out of Wellington and Lyttelton. Those in Auckland took part in earlier protest stoppages coordinated through the Auckland Trades Council. It is the first of another round of shipping disruption. Seamen will hold a 24hour protest stoppage over

the wage regulations next week. The date had not been fixed last night, but it is expected to be on Tuesday.

The secretary of the Federated Cooks and Stewards’ Union (Mr T. M. Hill) said the stoppage was a result of the negative stand by the Employers’ Federation advocates in their refusal to negotiate conditions of employment with the unions covering printers, journalists, drivers, and rubber workers.

This clearly exposed their collaboration with the Government to reduce further the living standards of wage and salary earners, he said.

The employers’ stand made them appendages ’of the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) and the Minister of Labour (Mr Gordon). The executive of the Cooks and Stewards’ Union had recognised the injustices that members of unions were suffering and recommended a stoppage from noon today to noon tomorrow.

“The union regrets any inconvenience that may be caused to the travelling public,” Mr Hill said. Cooks and stewards fully agreed with the Federation of Labour’s policy for the removal of all restrictive regulations. he said.