Talks fail to end Marsden Pt row

Press, 28 June 1983, Page 8

Talks fail to end Marsden Pt row

PA Whangarei An early return to work at the Marsden Point oil refinery expansion site seems unlikely after a union meeting yesterday. The union site committee’s chairman, Mr Bill Boyle, told about 1000 people that he could not recommend a return to work because of safety considerations. Mr Boyle said that talks at Marsden Point yesterday between the union andd the construction consortium, JV2, had failed to produce assurances sought by the unions. In particular, he said the company had not been willing to allow a provision under which any worker suspecting the presence of gas or vapour could demand immediate testing for explosive vapours. Earlier, the member of Parliament for Whangarei

and Kaipara, Messrs J. A. Banks and P. I. Wilkinson, who attended the meeting between JV2 and the union, had said a basis existed for settling the dispute. They said it was clear that both parties wanted a quick resolution and would discuss a settlement package with their colleagues. However, Mr Boyle said he could not walk back on to the site until he was assured of the right to demand a gas test. “If you people decide to walk back on to that site you will give the company the tools to squash us,” he told the meeting. Workers had complained of smelling gases on the morning of the day when four workers were injured in an explosion, he said. But a supervisor had told them something to the effect, “If you take your shoes off your feet will stink worse than

this.” Mr Boyle said the Labour Department had not said the site was safe, but had simply reported on a particular day about tests that had been taken. Most of these were negative, some were positive, and one particular test, in the vicinity of the control room building where the explosion had occurred, was high, Mr Boyle said. The jboilermakers’ delegate on the site committee, Mr Raymonde Hikaroa, said the whole issue of completing the refinery project now revolved round the “integrity” of the control room building. He said test bores on the site had shown hydrocarbon contamination of the ground water varying from 50mm thick to almost 9100 mm thick.