Port’s problems could lose it China trade

Press, 11 October 1988, Page 9

Port’s problems could lose it China trade

By TOM METCALFE Chinese ships might go to other ports in future unless the Lyttelton Port Company could sort out its labour problems, said the shipping agent for the ship Bai He Kou, the target of industrial action at Lyttelton yesterday. The general manager of Pacific Maritime, Mr Len Anthony, said from Auckland last evening that he hoped the port company could sort its workers out

“quickly and with friendly negotiation, as the Chinese say.” Pacific Maritime is the agent for the Chinese COSCO line, which sends

two ships a month to Lyttelton. The COSCO ship Bai He Kou had to remain at anchor outside the Heads yesterday when harbour workers refused to crew a tug and pilot boat to bring her in to berth. Mr Anthony said he had spoken with the owners of the company in China, who would wait to give the port a chance to bring the problems to a successful conclusion.

“That is all they can do at the moment. When you have a ship at anchor you don’t have many choices.” There were no plans to send COSCO ships to other

ports, but until Lyttelton could prove itself, that had to remain an option, Mr Anthony said. The secretary of the Lyttelton Watersiders’ Union, Mr Warren Collins, said that watersiders assigned to work on the Bai He Kou yesterday would forgo the shift money they would have been paid even though under their award they could insist on it.

He said the COSCO ships were a new service to Lyttelton, and watersiders were keen that it should not incur extra costs because of the dispute.