WATERFRONT DISPUTE

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 125, 22 February 1944, Page 6

WATERFRONT DISPUTE

Commission Denies Union Statement “In view of the possibility that the dispute which culminated inutile stoppage of work on the Wellington waterfront last week will shortly be ventilated before the commission, it would be undesirable for me to reply to the statement appearing in yesterday’s "Dominion made by the union, which purports to set out the circumstances leading up to the strike,” says a statement issued yesterday bv Captain R. E. Price, chair man of the Waterfront Control Commission. "The concluding paragraph of the union’s statement, however, alleges ‘that the commission refused tn meet the union in connexion with the dispute.’ This is emphatically denied. What the union was told was that the matter in dispu’J should go through the constitutional channels, namely, the local and nationadisputes committee, before it could rightly be brought before the commission. “The union did not follow this course, for later in the day a telephone message was received to the effect that unless the commission guaranteed payment to the men whose wages had been stopped by the harbour board, then all the men employed by the commission on the ship would cease work. “The commission could not propeny disregard the authority of the national disputes committee in the matter, nor could it give way to such an arbtirary demand. “It should be noted,” concludes the statement, “that the Wellington branch of the union is now pledged to adopt the direction given by the commission in the first instance to follow the procedure laid down for the settlement of disputes.” ' .