Freight damage not known until tomorrow

Press, 24 April 1984, Page 1

Freight damage not known until tomorrow

The extent of any damage to freight stranded in Picton will not be known until the freight-handling ban by railwaymen at Picton ends at midnight tomorrow.

About 40 shunters, number takers and panel operators imposed the ban on Wednesday after a dispute concerning the Easter and Anzac Day roster. The corporation had rostered off about a third of the workers, while the union claimed there was work for all of them over the holiday period.

The Railways deputy chief traffic manager in Wellington, Mr Don Tunnicliffe, said there were about 500 to 600 waggons stranded in the North Island because of the ban. Only one refrigerated container is affected in Wellington.

In the South Island the problem is worse, and the Christchurch district traffic

manager, Mr Bob Taylor, has estimated that there are 28 containers or 14 container waggons of perishable freight stranded in Marlborough from a total of about 270 waggons. Access difficulties prevent the containers being removed until the ban ends.

Mr Taylor said the perishable containers carried a large amount of export produce, including cheese, meat, seafood, fruit, plants and meat products. He estimated its value to be about $1 million. Mr Taylor said that the Railways and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries was keeping a watch on the containers, but they had not been able to open them to

inspect the contents because to do so would release the cold air inside the containers which may be preserving the contents. Mr Taylor said yesterday that some of the containers were equipped with their own refrigerating machinery. Cooled produce was more of a problem, he said, and tankers were providing carbon dioxide to keep the freight cooled.

Once the ban ended the waggons would be moved to Wellington or back to Spring Creek, Mr Taylor said. There they would be opened for inspection. Mr Taylor said the question of Railways compensation would depend on what sort of contract existed for

the freight. Most freight was carried under an owner’s risk contract, he said, although others would be the responsibility of the corporation. The corporation has always maintained that there was not as much freight moving across Cook Strait during the holiday and does not want to pay staff penal rates for doing nothing.

The union met on Saturday and Sunday to discuss another roster put forward by the corporation. This roster was said to include some extra employees to handle the backlog of freight which had built up during the dispute. The union rejected the

second roster, saying it only added one extra employee to handle luggage and simply shuffled other jobs around. After Sunday’s meeting the parties remained opposed. Because of the halt in freight movements the jobs of other freight handlers, particularly in Christchurch and Wellington, had been affected.

Mr Tunnicliffe said that some staff might have to be sent home without pay if the dispute continued.

The Blenheim branch chairman of the National Union of Railwaymen, Mr Kevin Faithful, said yesterday the branch would meet at 10 a.m. today.

He said that members would definitely go back to work from midnight tomorrow, after the holiday, whether there was agreement on the rosters or not. They were not talking of extending the ban past the holiday week-end. As a result, the management threat of lay-offs was unlikely to take effect.

Mr Faithful said there had never been any suggestion that the workers would not return to work after the holiday period. Mr Taylor said this had never been discussed in talks between the union and the corporation. “It is the union at Picton that wants to be out of step with the rest of New Zealand,” Mr Taylor said. “The employees affected by the reduced freight had been booked off, in common with the majority of the people in New Zealand.”

“Twenty-eight kilometres away at Blenheim, they have accepted the roster,” Mr Taylor said. He said the corporation’s chief industrial officer in Wellington would probably be looking into the situation after the holiday to ensure the same problem did not arise next time the corporation introduced a holiday roster.