WATERFRONT DISPUTE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 11, 10 December 1937, Page 8

WATERFRONT DISPUTE

DESCRIBED AS SCANDAL. “WHO RULES THE COUNTRY?” “What an advertisement this Auckland trouble has been for New Zealand. The demand has been made tune and again by the primary producers oi the Dominion that the whole question of waterfront work should be investigated but they have not been heeded. These troubles mean increases in shipping freights and extraordinary damage to our produce. All sections of producers and shippers are penalised.” „ „ , /r . Thus stated Mr W. J- Poison (Opposition) in the House of Representatives on Wednesday in moving the adjournment of the House so that » discussion could be held on the waterfront dispute, which had been settled that day. , , . ~ “This dispute was settled by Mr James Roberts,” added Mr Poison. “He succeeded where a sub-committee of Cabinet failed. Mr Roberts himselt has stated during the last few days that watersiders could give 50 per cent better dispatch and cut the time of work in half. He has blamed the ships’ agents and the stevedores for all the trouble, but it is known that he is aiming at the establishment ot a co-operative stevedoring company with himself in control. “The position has now advanced to such a stage that we are justified in asking who is ruling this country—the Government or the Trades and Labour Council. A thing like this should not be a class issue but should be confined to an impartial administration of the law. People who were prejudicially affected by the hold-up should have received the protection or the Government, but instead of that the Government appears to be dominated by the Trades Hall.’ Mr Speaker: Order! The bon. member must get closer to the subject matter of the motion. The Minister of Labour (Hon. H. I. Armstrong): He has not touched it / ’ ye “ What has happened cannot be allowed to continue,” added Mr Poison, “and it is the duty of the Government to tackle the problem. The public inquiry so often asked for by the primary producers should be granted. We want the matter put right and we want the Government, which ought to have the ability to control its own followers, to give justice in the matter. We are asking that something should be done to prevent a repetition of this scandal.” THE MINISTER’S PART. The steps he had taken to bring about a settlement of The dispute were related by the Minister of Labour. He said the men concerned had not played the game with the Government and their fellow unionists in New Zealand. By their actions they had assisted to wreck the prospects of workers generally. For that reason he took a serious view of the situation. “I am no more in favour of industrial disputes than the member for Stratford, and I have done a good deal more in my time to bring about industrial peace than lie is likely to do if he lives for a thousand years,” said Mr Armstrong. “The terms of an agreement should be strictly adhered to, and it is the duty of the Labour Department to see that siich agree-, ments are observed. Workers are not the only people who break agreements.” Mr Poison: Two wrongs do not make a right. Last year, said Mr Armstrong, there were 537 prosecutions against employers for breaches of agreements and awards. In addition, over 6000 complaints against employers were made to the department as against 44 prosecutions against workers. The dispute, the Minister said, had commenced last Friday. A call was made for labour at 10 a.in., 120 men being told off to work a ship when it arrived. The ship did not reach port until 6 p.m. The men had been hanging about all day. and apparently without consulting the union they arrived at the conclusion that it would be time enough to start work next morning. The result was that they were not allowed to commence work on the Saturday. He was informed that the companies were entitled to inflict some penalty on men treating them in that*, way. FAILURE ALLEGED “I heard nothing of the dispute until the Saturday,” added Mr Armstrong. “I immediately made representations to the shipping companies and also got into touch with the Watersiders’ Federation meeting in conference in Wanganui. I did everything possible to bring the parties together with a view to effecting a settlement.” Mr Poison: You did your best and | failed. I The Minister: Your best would not be as good as my worst. The result of the Saturday’s;) negotiations, said Mr Armstrong, was that the union advised the men to return to work on the Monday, but when they did soothe companies said they proposed to engage new men. Two days previously the same kind of dispute had happened in Wellington, but the employers had allowed the men to work. The workers at Auckland had 6aid that if the employers insisted on the men they wanted to work the ship concerned they would not allow men to work the others. “Had it not been for tlie fact that all the leading officials of the union were at the conference at Wanganui, I hardly believe the trouble would have occurred,” said Mr Armstrong. “On my recommendation the conference allowed the two Auckland delegates to return to Auckland immediately, and the representative of the shipping companies agreed to go to Auckland at the same time. They met immediate! v on Monday to discuss the points in dispute. . , ~ ~ “I was in touch with them on the telephone, and they told me it was a very wet day and that it did not matter very much if the dispute were not settled that day as it was too .wet to work. The member f%p Stratford has talked about the delay in the loading of the farmers’ produce, but the most the produce was held, was three or four hours this Mr Poison : Twenty-four ships . were idle. .

Mr Armstrong: They were wet days and the ships would not be worked. “When I thought sufficient progress was not being made with the negotiations,” continued Mr Armstrong, “I again got into touch with Mr J. Roberts at Wanganui and told him the Government held the federation responsible and that we wanted him to proceed to Auckland. Mr Roberts arrived there this morning, and he apparently conveyed the message from the Government as to the action it would take if the dispute were not The Government would go into the question in the very near future, and do everything possible to put a stop to what had been happening in the past A union that had a clause in an agreement at its own request wherebv disputes were to be referred to a disputes committee without a stoppage of work had a right to observe that condition. If it did not do so it was not playing the game by its own union, the Government, or the

people of the country. “If a union has no more control over its members, than to allow little gangs of men to take the law into their own hands and cause hold-ups then it should not be allowed to retain its registration,” said Mr Armstrong. “People who do , that sort of thing are betrayers of every decent principle of unionism and should •be expelled from the union.”