WATERFRONT LABOUR

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 285, 29 August 1941, Page 8

WATERFRONT LABOUR

Amount Of Work Done

Criticized

"The duty' rests on the community to get on with the job and do more work,” said Mr. Polson (Opposition, Stratford), who devoted the major part or his time to a criticism of the cost of waterfront labour as revealed in the Waterfront Commission’s report. The sum of £90,000 was being spent annually on courts and commissions, but the amount of work done was not increased, said Mr. Polson. A Government member: Production .has gone up. Mr. Polson: But there is i.o more work for each unit of time. Extraordinary variations, he continued, were shown in waterfront work. At Napier 500 freight carcases v.ere loaded a gang au hour, but the total was 380 at Auckland, where the men avel-aged £l2 a week for 21 weeks. Less work an hour was being done, as a result of the commission, the two members of which were entirely representative of Labour. "I am not worrying about paying or increases in pay,” he said. "If worthy, good luck to them; but lam worrying about getting all the work we can done in wartime.” The effect of. the increased pay and the commission’s work was to increase materially the costs to shipping companies. At one port, 4500 hours which were not worked had been paid for. The turning round of ships Lad been speeded up by 25 per cent, but at tremendous cost. At Wellington, the average rate of pay worked out at 8/- hourly and returns for other ports were about the same. Scandalous discrimination was shown in not paying non-unionists a bonus.

"On a transport in Wellington, soldiers threw pennies on those below to encourage them to get on with the job,” Mr. Polson said. "The watersiders decided that if there was any more of it they would go on strike and the authorities had to ask the soldiers to desist from irritating them.” The Minister of Labour, Mr. Webb, said that if Mr. Polson was serious it would do him good to spend a little time on the waterfront and watch how the men worked. Mr. Polson and the members of his party should be fair in their criticism of the waterside workers. If the men were making the great sums of money which it was alleged they were, there would be a rush of labour to the wharves. Ear from that being the case, it had been found necessary to advertise for 200 men to cope with the shortage of labour on the waterfront. Some of the men were having to work 18 hours a day to get the ships turned round quickly, and though a few of them were not playing the game, they would soon find that they would not be tolerated.