Picket may stop sheep shipment at Timaru wharf

Press, 28 February 1986, Page 1

Picket may stop sheep shipment at Timaru wharf

The 17,250 sheep destined for Mexico may get only as far as the Timaru North Mole wharf today.

As the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Moyle, yesterday afternoon announced permission for the second shipment of live sheep to go ahead, meat workers from throughout New Zealand were converging on Timaru to picket the wharves.

The president of the Federation of Labour, Mr Jim Knox, announced that the meat workers would picket the wharf. A delegation he had led had failed to persuade Mr Moyle to prevent the shipment.

Unions representing drivers and watersiders both said last evening that they would not cross the picket line. The company making the shipment and Federated Farmers have said farmers will not be used to load the sheep. Loading of trucks is planned to begin at May-

field at 5.30 a.m. today, for the first trucks to be at the Timaru wharves by 7 a.m.

The president of the Timaru Watersiders’ Union, Mr T. R. Hanson, told “The Press”: "If an official picket line goes there, we won’t go across.”

The Canterbury Drivers’ Union president, Mr Fred Simmons, said last evening, “Drivers decided at their annual meetings in Ashburton and Timaru about last November that they would not cross picket lines.”

Both the Ashburton cartage firms that will take the stock to Timaru, Burnett Transport and McCormicks Transport, use only drivers who are union members.

A South Island representative for Animal En-

terprises, the company exporting the sheep, has dismissed any possibility of farmers being called on to load the ship in place of the watersiders.

The representative, Mr John Tavendale, of Ashburton, said, “We plan to deliver stock tomorrow and that is all. As we understand it, work on the wharves is for watersiders.”

This was echoed by Mr R. W. Fletcher, South Canterbury president of Federated Farmers. “The laws of the land must be upheld and I appeal to all farmers to keep away from the wharves at Timaru until called upon by the national president, Mr Peter Elworthy,” said Mr Fletcher.

The National Meat Workers’ Union secretary, Mr A. J. Kennedy, and eight other officials arrived in Timaru last evening to co-ordinate protest action and set up a picket line.

Eighty meat workers from one South Island freezing works also arrived in Timaru last evening and many others from throughout New Zealand are expected. Mr Kennedy said that the picket would be “nonconfrontational” unless there was pushing from the other side.

The police had been in touch with the union, and had been told there Would be peaceful picketing. Members of the Pareora and Smithfield sub-branches of the union are taking their directives from Mr Kennedy.

Security on the Timaru wharves is tight, as for the first shipment in December. Only persons carrying passes will be allowed on to the wharves at loading time. If the sheep are loaded, it will take 20 hours or two working days. According to Mr Sid McAuley, South Canterbury president of the truck employers’ body, the Road Transporters’ Association, drivers have little sympathy for the freezing workers. “Freezing workers get paid much more than truck-drivers and if we don’t do the job, farmers will cart the sheep themselves. We have been pushed around by the Government for 10 years with deregulation of the industry, a new licensing system, new road limits, and savage tax increases.

"We have had to ride out these changes and while we have made no profit we have been able to survive. The meat industry has got to accept change as we did.” While approving the shipment, Mr Moyle noted that approval for any future shipments hinged on how well this one went.

Ministry of Agriculture veterinarians would again accompany the sheep to Mexico.

NZPA reports from Wellington that the World Society for the Protection of Animals is threatening to boycott New Zealand lamb exports to North America unless the Government stops live sheep exports.