Harbour Bridge staff walk off job

Press, 10 November 1983, Page 2

Harbour Bridge staff walk off job

PA Auckland Traffic banked up for more than a kilometre across the Auckland Harbour Bridge yesterday when bridge staff staged a wildcat walk-off because of unresolved redundancy claims. At one stage the threatened to close the bridge completely.

About 150 staff walked off at 9.30 a.m. leaving only two toll booths working. The result was a traffic jam reaching back to the Ponsonby on-ramp on the city side.

The Ministry of Transport threatened to clear the jam by removing drums placed in front of the booths and open the toll gates. But 30 minutes after leaving their posts, staff returned to work after storming into the authority board: room only minutes before board members were to hold their monthly meeting. The local Body Officers’. Union Secretary, Mr Ken Tuxford, told the board staff that the staff wanted an assurance that the board still honoured an agreement on redundancies made, ih 1975.

The board’s acting chairman, Mr Warwick Barraclough, said the board would meet a staff delegation if they returned to work. But the union refused unless the board held talks yesterday on the dispute. ;