OAMARU WATERSIDERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 May 1942, Page 2

OAMARU WATERSIDERS

QUESTION OF PUBLICITY

OAMARU, May 20

Oamaru waterside workers this evening walked out oi a meeting because the chairman (Mr. R. K. Ireland) refused to allow the proceedings to be reported. The meeting was convened by the Oamaru Harbour Board to discuss the work on , the waterfront with the workers, whose co-operation in speeding up the work was sought. AL the last meeting of the Harbour Board it was stated that the watersiders’ stop-work meetings at Oamaru, as in other centres, were detrimental both to the port authority and to the nation’s war effort, and a decision was made to meet the men with a request that they should stop holding such meetings. . The chairman and Messrs G. T. Gillies, A. McLelland, A. M. Hayes, and the secretary (Mr. T. J. Guthrie) were appointed to represent the board in the discussions that were to have been held this evening; there was a representative attendance of watersiders. Vigorous protests from the watersiders greeted the chairman’s move to exclude the newspapers, and wljat was intended to be a friendly meeting closed in a spirit of hostility, with the watersiders taking control, moving and seconding motions oi protest, and finally leaving the board room m The chairman said that, notwithstanding the attitude oi the waterside workers, he would give them the opportunity, if they wished it, ol waiting on the board at its next monthly meeting, when the proceedings could be published if board members so wished. _____