Minister denies F.O.L. claim

Press, 8 November 1978, Page 1

Minister denies F.O.L. claim

PA Dunedin The Minister of Labour (Mr Gordon) yesterday denied any suggestion that the Wellington Boilermakers’ Union would be reregistered. He said an assertion by the president of the Federation of Labour (Sir Thomas Skinner) that he (Mr Gordon) had recommended the reregistration of the union and that the Cabinet had rejected this was “totally incorrect.” Mr Gordon was in Dunedin to open the harbour engineers’ seventh biennial conference, his last official duty as Minister of Labour before retiring. The union was deregistered by the Minister about two years ago in a longstanding dispute over the new Bank of New Zealand building in Wellington. The boilermakers formed themselves into the Wellington Boilermakers’

Society-but it has no legal status as a union and its members are not covered by the Industrial Relations Act. Because of this they can- ! not be offered work on the i new Wellington container j crane, which must be j covered by the act. Mr Gordon said half of the new crane for the Wellington Harbour Board had been built but was now “stuck there.” .

His reason for refusing to reregister the union was a “complete lack of responsibility by the union:

I can see nd change in that.” Sir Thomas had assured him that he (Sir Thomas) would sign a contract last week to get the crane finished but no contract had been signed. He had not been able to find out why, Mr Gordon said.