Canterbury feeling rail-strike pinch — worse predicted

Press, 1 September 1977, Page 1

Canterbury feeling rail-strike pinch — worse predicted

The railways strike has hit Canterbury: Seven goods trains from Christchurch had to be cancelled yesterday and it is predicted that almost no trains will run today.

Repairs to tank waggons, bulk carriers, guard’s vans, and Road Services buses are being delayed by railway tradesmen in an attempt to get their wagerelativity problem solved.

It is believed that the tradesmen might step up their industrial action before the end of the week if the dispute remains unresolved.

Reports from Wellington say there is no sign of a breakthrough, and sources in the Railway Tradesmen’s Association have confirmed that the stoppage will continue indefinitely.

Christchurch was one of the last centres affected by the dispute, but it was now hitting services hard, said the district officer of railways (Mr L. R. Luxton).

He said the Railways had cleared all available

tonnage by 5 p.m. yesterday, and were still accepting goods for transport to other centres. However, officials would probably have to take steps this morning to limit the acceptance of perishable goods, but it would depend on instructions received from head office at Wellington.

"Because this is a mechanical dispute, we are on the outer, and it is really nothing to do with us,” Mr Luxton said. “It is very hard to get an over-ail picture of how services will be affected today, and it is also impossible to say whether passenger services will stop "1 imagine that everybody will be affected equally if the dispute carries on much longer.”

Selective restrictions on the acceptance of freight are expected to be announced from Wellington. The Assistant General

Manager of Railways (Mr R. W. D. Thompson) said yesterday afternoon that the freight movement situation was "extremely fluid,” and was being reviewed from hour to hour.

Twenty goods trains were cancelled in the North Island yesterday — 12 from Auckland, seven from Wellington and one from Taumaranui.

The main problem centres round guards vans, which are in short supply. Freight trains must have a guards van, but these are backlogging in the workshops because of the tradesmens’ ban on their maintenance — which must be regular, and often. The argument centres round relativity between boilermakers and welders. Boilerrnarkers want an additional 6.9 c an hour awarded to welders by an independent arbitrator.

The Government is concerned that this would flow on to other tradesmen if it

was granted to the boilermakers.

There are now 131 guards vans out of action throughout New Zealand from a total of 322, the Press Association says. In Auckland, it is believed that fitters have also banned the use of all “on-track” machinery which is used for track maintenance.

Emergency licences to enable trucking firms to carry inter-city freight will probably be issued today by the Ministry of Transport, according to the past president of the Christchurch Road Transport Association (Mr G. D. McCormick). If trucking firms could prove that clients needed the cargo, then the Ministry would issue an emergency licence, he said. However, a freight shutdown by the Railways would be “serious” if it lasted more than two or three days, said Mr McCormick.

In a previous rail strike, trucking operators formed a transport pool to enable cargo to be moved efficiently. Luckily, there had been a drop in road freight volume by about 30 per cent, over the last few weeks, said Mr McCormick. National Airways could handle some of the Railways freight, if called upon to do so, said the regional manager (Mr K. E. Costello) in Christchurch last evening. He would not say what freight capacity the airline had available, for this depended on the urgency of consignments, and the number of freighters available from Safe Air, Ltd.

“We will accept what we can handle.” he said.