Wages dispute baits petrol delivery

Press, 10 February 1988, Page 1

Wages dispute baits petrol delivery

By

YVONNE MULDER

Oil deliveries through the Port of Lyttelton are at a standstill because of a dispute over wages paid to Korean seamen.

The chemical tanker Southern Cross 8 cannot leave the oil wharf because of a picket by the New Zealand Seamen’s Union so that no other ships can use the berth. The L.P.G. tanker Tarihiko is at anchor outside the Heads, and the Amokura, carrying Christchurch's next petrol delivery, has been diverted to Timaru. Petrol supplies to Christchurch service stations would probably last a “few more days,” said the manager of Mobil’s Woolston plant, Mr Allan Cannell. Oil companies could bring petrol to Christchurch by road from anywhere in the South Island but they would not need to look at that option for some time yet, he said. The Amokura made about 40 deliveries a year normally “so the longer it stays out, the closer we get to running out,” Mr Cannell said. The president of the Canterbury Motor Trade Association, Mr Bill Fallen, said he' did not anticipate any problems for motorists. “If people stick to their normal buying patterns there shouldn’t be any problems,” he said. Petrol could be brought to Christchurch from other places and it was not unusual for oil companies to have road movements between depots, he said. The Seamen’s Union had put a ban on the Southern Cross 8, said Mr Gary McLean, the New Zea-

land representative for Stolt Nielsen, Australia, the ship’s owner. The union wanted the 18 Korean crew members to be paid the same wages as the New Zealand or Australian seamen working on a Tasman run, he said. “They don’t want cheap, foreign labour taking their jobs.” The union said another company had set a precedent for equal wages when it chartered the Southern Cross 8 for Tasman trade last year, said Mr McLean. The company involved denied this, and so Stolt Nielsen was not prepared to set the precedent, he said. “We are not going to give in and pay the Korean crew the difference between their wage and the New Zealand one,” he said. The Korean crew wanted to sail the ship. Stolt Neilsen was seeking an interim injunction to get the vessel to sail, but it probably would not go to the High Court before Friday, said Mr McLean. The secretary of the South Island branch of the Seamen’s Union, Mr Terry Stuart, said the Southern Cross 8 was in dispute and the union was not prepared to have her shifted from the oil wharf. Other ships at Lyttelton wishing to refuel before leaving the port, such as the United States supply vessel Greenwave bound for Antarctica, are also held up by the dispute.