Port idle as workers fail to return

Press, 25 July 1989, Page 7

Port idle as workers fail to return

By

PAM MORTON

Work was suspended at the Port of Lyttelton yesterday after watersiders failed to return to work after a stop-work meeting.

The stop-work meeting, called to brief members on the award talks, was adjourned at 11 a.m. until 7 a.m. today. Ships arriving at the port were given a dispensation to enable them to be tied up but they remained unworked. The secretary of the Lyttelton Waterfront Workers’ Union, Mr Warren Collins, said the meeting had been adjourned to give members time to digest the information presented at yesterday’s meeting. "I did inform our employers that the meeting could take most of the day,” he said. Award talks broke down on July 17 with the union insisting on a national agreement and the employers pushing for port-by-port agreements. The first attempt to negotiate a separate agreement was made at Tauranga. Discussions for the ports of Auckland and Onehunga have been set down for August 23 and 24.

Mr Collins said the union had discussed the offer being made at Tauranga.

“Our members are fairly irate. There is a strong feeling that a national agreement must be maintained,” he said.

Employer moves for

separate agreements flow from Government waterfront reform measures. On October 1, the Waterfront Industry Commission will go out of existence, allowing waterfront employers to employ watersiders direct. New employment structures will have to be negotiated by that date and employers are pushing for port agreements. The local industrial officer for the National Association of Waterfront Employers (N.A.W.E.), Mr Patrick Hayes, said he had been informed by the union that they would be holding an unauthorised stop-work meeting to discuss their award negotiations. “Otherwise there were no indications that they would be walking off the job,” he said. N.A.W.E.’s legal advocate, Mr Gavin McNaught, said there were varying legal opinions as to whether the union’s action at Lyttelton was lawful or unlawful. “We are looking at our options,” he said. Auckland waterfront workers also stayed off the job after their stop-

work meeting. The other waterfront union, the Harbour Workers’ Union, will hold a stop-work meeting this

week to discuss the breakdown in its award talks.

Port companies throughout New Zealand have been served with 14 days notice of industrial action by the union over the refusal by 10 port companies to take part in conciliation on the harbour workers’ award which will expire next month. The matter was referred to the Labour Court by the mediator but the union withdrew its request to have all the regional ports represented at the talks.

The secretary of the Lyttelton Harbour Workers’ Union, Mr Paul Corliss, said the union had since registered claims against the four main ports of Auckland, Wellington, Lyttelton and Port Chalmers, on the basis that the regional ports would be pulled into the talks as subsequent parties.

Mr Corliss said a conciliation meeting would be held in Wellington on Thursday to enable the union to put forward its new claim.

The notice of industrial action would not be cancelled, he said. “It’s still an option and there is no point in withdrawing it at this stage.” Lyttelton harbour workers will meet on Friday to take a secret ballot authorising industrial action.