NO CREW FOR WAIPAHI

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21641, 6 November 1933, Page 8

NO CREW FOR WAIPAHI

DISPUTE OVER ENGAGEMENT WESTPORT TRIP CANCELLED Owing to a deadlock over the engagement of a crew for the Union Company's cargo steamer Waipahi, which was to have sailed for Westport on Saturday, the trip has been cancelled. The Waipahi was being recommissioned after lying idle in the stream for over a month and a new crew was to have been engaged on Saturday morning, the departure of th(B vessel being fixed for noon. The men engaged for the vessel, however, refused to sign on unless a man "who wa» objected to by the company's officials was included in the crew. The company refused to make any concession, and as no other members of the Seamen's Union would accept employment on the vessel, the trip was cancelled. The Waipahi was withdrawn from the Auckland-Fiji-Tonga service last June and since then the company's steamer Karetu, which is on the Auckland-New-castle-Sydney-Fiji run, has made occasional trips to Tonga when required and she also brought fruit from Fiji to Auckland. To cater for the Christmas fruit trade,,the company had arranged for the Waipahi to relievo the Karetu and to leave Auckland for Sydney, Fiji and Tonga on November 15. In the meantime she was to have made a trip to Westport to load a cargo of coal for Auckland.