WATERFRONT WORK

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 29 June 1943, Page 5

WATERFRONT WORK

HANDLING OF CARGO STATEMENT BY EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATION Wellington, This Day. It was felt necessary by the New Zealand Waterside Employers’ Association, stated the general secretary yesterday, to correct the impression conveyed by statements in the House of Representatives recently which indicated that there had been a substantial improvement in the work on the waterfront. It was not right or advisable that a feeling of complacency that all was well in regard to cargo-handling should go uncorrected, and in point of fact many unsatisfactory matters pertaining to the handling of cargo at the principal New Zealand ports were substantially the same now as they were before the war, and the work left a great deal to be desired. “The Minister of Labour has stated that figures would prove that 25 per cent, better work was being done on the waterfront to-day than at any previous time,” the secretary said. “No doubt this statement is based on figures supplied to the Minister by the Waterfront Control Commission, but the basis adopted by the commission in compiling these figures gives a wrong comparison of the actual working. The commission bases its figures on what is known as winch time, i.e., the time during which the winches are working. Under this method each delay of five minutes or so is counted ay non-working time so that in an eight-hour day not more than six hours might be counted as working time, whereas under the employers’ method unless there were any major delays, such as through rain, or breakdown of machinery, the time would be counted as eight hours. If, say, a gang loaded 100 tons betwen 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., the commission’s record would show an agerage of 16 2-3 tons a gang an hour, whereas the employers would show an average of 16 2-3 tons a gang figures are quoted purely to show how the different methods may give an entirely false reflection of the work actually being performed. HIGH OVERTIME RATES “Though vessels are being turned around in less time than before the war, this quicker dispatch is due mainly, if not wholly, to night and week-end work for which high overtime rates are paid. “The question with which the public is concerned is whether abuses which were known to exist on the waterfront prior to and early in the war years nave been eliminated and whether the work is now being carried on with that ‘win the war effort’ so essential under present day conditions. The employers of waterside labour regret that such is not the case, and at certain ports practices are still in operation among the men which existed before the war, and which are a definite hindrance to speed and efficiency of the work. Among these abuses is the spelling system, whereby on oversea loading vessels of the 12 men paid to work in the hold six work and six rest, taking hour about. This practice is not confined to refrigerated ships, and on ships working general cargo where there are usually six men in the hold to the gang, it is seldom that more than four are working at the one time, i.e., the men taking it in turns to rest two at a time. These practices of spelling have grown only in recent years and should not be tolerated under present-da/ conditions. Restrictions in the size of slings by the men and the ceasing 0 f work before the correct times for knocking off at meal hours or at the finish cf work for the day are other serious hindrances in dispatch and the men usually knock off 10 minutes or a quarter of an hour before the correct time. COAL DISCHARGE DELAYED “Refusal to work in rain, even of the from satisfactory are to-day’s watersary delays, and last week at Wellington coal ships lay idle at the wharves for days with their holds full of coal, requiring o nly a few men, who would be subjected to the weather, to permit of their being discharged, while in the city householders, the gas company, factories and military camps were urgently in need of coal supplies. A shipment of eggs, also urgently needed in Wellington, remained in the ship's* hold undischarged because of the rain and at Lyttelton some trucks of cabbages were rejected at the ship’s side by the waterside workers because it was raining and they considered this was not perishable cargo. These are incidents happening within the last few days and are quoted to show how very far from satisfactory are to-day’s waterfront conditions. “S 0 far as earnings of the waterside workers are concerned, if as has been stated on many occasions the working hours of waterside workers are 84 a week, then their earnings could not be less than £l9 Is lOd a week. Actually, the average at Wellington would be round about £lO a week, and the hours of work round about 50, and it is safe to say that no more than 10 per cent, of the men would average anything like 80 hours a week. We think it will be agreed that the men are being liberally rewarded and it is up to them to carry out the work in the manner which the Minister of Labour has evidently been informed is the case.”