NON-CO-OPERATION ON THE WATERFRONT

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 127, 23 February 1938, Page 10

NON-CO-OPERATION ON THE WATERFRONT

• The survey of waterfront work in New Zealand by the managing director of the Port Line in London was particularly well-reasoned, dispassionate and helpful. After painstaking inquiries at a number of ports, Mr. Rooper concluded that the present position respecting cargo handling is “little short 'of tragic.” His acquaintance with waterside conditions goes back some years through his former residence in New Zealand as a prominent figure in shipping circles of this country. Mr. Rooper therefore has been a witness of the deterioration of the standard of work and the spirit of co-operation on the wharves. By talking with the men themselves, Mr. Rooper made a sincere attempt to determine first-hand the reasons underlying the perfunctory work and the long succession of hold-ups, disputes and irritations which have characterised waterfront labour in the last two years. It is noteworthy that no attempt was made by the men to deny that as a body they were not doing a fair day’s work. Not only that, but they tacitly admitted “go-slow” tactics, though advancing a variety of reasons in justification of their attitude toward the employer and the job. Some, as Mr. Rooper decided, were relatively trivial. The real explanation, as he learned from the men, goes to the root of the system of cargo handling itself. Waterfront labour in New Zealand is rewarded with wages rates higher than any ruling elsewhere in British communities. The men are protected as to regularity of employment to an extent nowhere else bettered. Yet the workers are dissatisfied. What is the reason ? Clearly they are aiming through the Waterside Workers’ Federation at a complete alteration in their relationship with the shipping companies in 'the present system of employer and employed. The secretary of the federation seeks a co-operative schethe by whiqji the constituent unions shall enjoy the role of stevedores with the working control in the hands of the union and profit of such operations divided among the men. Mr. Roberts denied that irritation tactics and slow work are a part of conscious policy toward this end. But the fact remains that every effort made to achieve happier relations between the employers and the workers, in spite of the concessions granted by the former, has been abortive. The federation wants co-operation, but apparently only on its own terms. Cooperation, as Mr. Rooper emphasised, involves co-operation by all parties—not merely co-operation by one side as the federation proposes. Before the existing system can be improved, if a change is necessary or desirable, there must first be a guarantee of good faith. At present this spirit is wholly absent. There can be no confidence in agreements while the workers as individuals or the federation as a body responsible for enforcing discipline in union ranks treat awards and contracts with contempt. The men fail to realise, or are wilfully blind to the fact, that in slowing up a vital distributive service they are directly harming their own interests. Labour costs at our. ports have reached world waterside records. These costs must be passed on in the form of higher prices for everything they handle in imports and in It deduction from the net value of exports. Waterside workers along with the rest of the community are direct and indirect sufferers .from these losses and from_the added costs.