Notice of port strike

Press, 21 July 1989, Page 3

Notice of port strike

By

CULLEN SMITH

Port companies throughout New Zealand have been served with 14 days notice of industrial action by the Harbour Workers’ Union. Secret ballots of union members are set for next week over the refusal of 10 port companies to take part in conciliation on the harbour workers’ award which expires next month. “Employers in the ports industry seem determined to plunge it into industrial chaos," the union’s national secretary, Mr Ross Wilson, said yesterday. 'Several representative employers nominated negotiators, but a faction of ’ —

small' port employers boycotted the ■ conciliation council this .week and chal- : lenged the right of other employers to s represent them, he said. “The mediator felt unable to decide ; whether the nominated employers are • sufficiently representative of the indus- • try and has referred the matter to the Labour Court,” Mr Wilson said. If small ports nominated their own representatives, the matter could be i resolved' quickly. “Our members are fed up with the battering they have taken over the past few years and are prepared to fight hard to retain what they haye left,” Mr Wilson said.