REPORT CRITICISED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 10 September 1941, Page 6

REPORT CRITICISED

WATERFRONT CONTROL COMMISSION CHARGE BY EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATION Wellington, This Day. A charge that the Waterfront Control Commission had used its powers to enforce on employers higher labour costs but has shown reluctance to use those powers on the other side to dis cipline recalcitrant elements on the waterfront was made to-day by Mr W. H. G Bennett, secretary of the Water side Employers’ Association, on its be half It is a matter of the utmost importance to the Dominion at the present critical time that *’ e self-delusion of the commission regarding the alleged enormous improvements it has secured on the waterfront should not be allowed to give rise to any false assumptions and easy complacency and obscure the present need for a real and sustained effort to improve the output of work on the waterfront. Shipping companies have accepted substantial increased labour costs imposed on them by the Commission and have put into operations at high cost all practicable measures within their control to improve despatch A further material improvement m despatch can come only from the goodwill and good work of the individual watersider. It is as much in his own interests as those of New Zealand generally to make this contribution to the war effort." said Mr Bennett after detailed criticism of the report to Parliament. Mr Bennett said that a reduction in the number of ports of call had contributed more than any other measure to improve the despatch and had nothing whatever to do with the Commission, having been arranged bv tile shipping companies at the request of the British Ministry of War Transport and the United Kingdom headquarters of overseas, and had been achieved by the coasting and railing of large quantities of cargo at very high cost to the British Government. The statement that there had been an increase of 15 per cent in the rate of work was not borne out by the overall records kept for a number of years, which shows there has been substantial added cost with a small increase in the rate of working general cargo and actually a decrease with coal discharge. I Such increases as there might be in the rates of work did not measure up by any means to the present emergency, and it n*ist be born in mind that by the overseas shipipng companies reducing the number of ports of loading and discharging handling of cargo by the watersiders had been simplified.—P.A.