Better port relations?

Press, 30 March 1981, Page 10

Better port relations?

PA Auckland The Auckland Harbour Board will talk more with trade unions in future, the chairman of the board, Mr Mick Shanahan has told several hundred members of the Harbour Board Employees’ Union. He had been invited to. address the quarterly meeting of the Auckland branch of the union, the first time that a harbour boss had addressed a waterfront-union meeting. It was part of a bid by both sides for a new look at waterfront industrial relations after a recent flare-up of disputes. Mr Shanahan listed the port’s problems on lost trade: 13 per cent below projections

d so far this year and income down by $l.B million in the first four months and likely to be down by about $2 million by September. He expressed his concern over competition from small ports, wool-shipment losses. .- meatwork closings, and strikes. He proposed that all the waterfront pay awards be settled in the same month and he recommended an incentive system for the port. He made a strong call for amalgamation into one waterfront union but the Auckland branch president of the union, Mr S. Shanks, said that amalgamation was “pie in the sky” because the watersiders had thrown out an offer from his union.