Railwork ban on Otira tunnel
PA Wellington Track laying and maintenance work in the Otira rail tunnel linking the West Coast with Canterbury yesterday came under a trade union ban after workers collapsed from breathing toxic fumes at the week-end. West Coast coal exports to Japan and Korea through Lyttelton would be disrupted if a track fault developed in the tunnel. Other freight between Canterbury and the West Coast normally carried by rail would also be stopped. The President of the National Union of Railwaymen (Mr George Finlayson)
who is atending the Labour Party conference in Wellington, said that he had ordered work stopped after being told yesterday morning of the fumes in the tunnel. He had told the Health and Labour Departments of the decision, he said. Mr Finlayson said that three men on track-laying work at the week-end had to be revived with oxygen after breathing the fumes, believed to have been generated by track-laying machinery. Two were still under medical attention yesterday, Mr Finlayson said. Track-laying, the first significant maintenance work in the tunnel for about 50 years,
was being carried out by gangs of workers during week-ends, Mr Finlayson said. Normal maintenance was done during the week. The N.U.R. had expressed fears about health and safety of the workers when the work was proposed, but failed to get satisfactory assurances from the two departmnts, he said. “What we feared has now happened, and consequently all work in the tunnel has been stopped,” he said. It would not be permitted to resume until the union was satisfied that measures to protect the workers had been implemented, he said.
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Press, 13 May 1981, Page 2
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271Railwork ban on Otira tunnel Press, 13 May 1981, Page 2
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