SPEEDING UP

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 56, Issue 32904, 3 September 1947, Page 6

SPEEDING UP

WATERFRONT WORK - — i MR SUTHERLAND’S SPEECH “TIME QUARRELING CEASED” His views on the question of speeding up work on the waterfront were expressed by Mr A. S. Sutherland, M.P. for Hauraki, in the House of Representatives recently. The following is Mr Sutherland’s speech: “ The Minister of Labour had put in a plea for peace on the waterfront and all Hon. Members would subscribe to that. The Minister however should not be so aggressive, he should take things in a more sportsmanlike manner, and he should realise that it did not pay to attack the other fellow in this House. The Minister really did not tell the House anything, although he certainly referred to a wage of £2 10s a week in the bad old days.” * Mr Sutherland said that he had before him a copy of the annual report of the Waterfront Control Commission from which he noted that the average pay for a union worker on the Auckland waterfront between 1940 and 1945 had been £ll TOs 5d per week. For 1940-46 period it had been £ll 5s lOd a week, with a lot of free meals and other concessions thrown in. With an overall average of £lO 7s 4d per week in all New Zealand ports, the days of £2 a week had gone for ever. However, he was more interested in seeing a little bit of work done. “It was no mare’s nest that had been raised by the member for Patea,” Mr Sutherland said, “and if that honourable gentleman and the member for Piako were to accept the invitation of the Minister of Labour to go down to the waterfront they would have no difficulty in holding their end up. It would be quite easy for them, and they would get well paid for their work. “.Something had to be done about speeding up the turn-round of ships or the whole economic structure of the country would fall to the ground. The rate of work on the waterfront had to be speeded up. Today it seemed that nobody counted except Barnes and Co. The Government had set up commission after commission.

“Who had been in charge of the first commission? The workers’ own leader, Jim Roberts. They had had everything in their favour. Mr Roberts had been given a salary of £1250, and I have no objection to that at all if the work was done, but the work had not improved. It took twice as long now for a ship to be turned round, and the whole position was absolutely chaotic. The workers had defied the commissions and tribunals that had been set up, and now they were defying the Minister, who should take some steps to do something about the matter. “ The Auckland harbour was cluttered with ships but the workers took half a day off to vote last November with the booths only a stone’s throw away. Things like that will have to stop if the work was to >be speeded up. Let me quote from a newspaper: ‘The cost of handling per ton of cargo on the waterfront has substantially . increased, since 1939 and for our vessels this increase amounts to 83 per. cent at Auckland, 123.8 per cent, at Onehunga and 86 per cent, at out ports, said the chairman of the Northern Steamship Company Ltd.’ “ The industry just could not carry those increased costs.. No one could say, when the average was £ll 5s lOd over a five-year period, that the waterfront workers were underpaid. Then there was the question of spelling. The Government had tried to tackle that. It ’had set up a special commission headed by Mr Justice Ongley, with the status of a Supreme Court Judge. When he had tried to do away with spelling the men had just said, ‘Out you go,’ and out he had gone. The bolstering-up of waterfront workers by other sections just did not count.

“ It is time some work was done. It is wrong that people at Home should be almost starving when there were ships in the Auckland harbour waiting seven, eight, or nine weeks to be loaded. A firm Minister was wanted to handle the situation. I believe the present Minister could be firm when he liked, and he should get down to business and tell the waterfront workers where they ‘got off.’ It ’-S .time all this pdtty quarreling between the Minister and leaders of the waterside workers ceased in the interests of the whole community.”