LOADING DELAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23617, 29 March 1940, Page 6

LOADING DELAY

WHARF POSSIBILITY FREEZING CHAMBER HANDS NO OVERTIME WORK Described as being just as serious in its own sphere as the recent waterfront dispute, the refusal o:a Wednesday of 100 chamber hands employed by the Auckland Fanners" Freezing Com pa n v to work overtime ft hen loading ships threatens to interrupt arrangements for sending dairy produce overseas from Auckland. A lequest be made to-day for the men to work overtime on Sunday night, and if they refuse it two vessels due to load dairy produce on [Monday ill be held up. These ships have to start loading at 8 a.m. oil Monday. To have the dairy produce ready it is stated to be necessary to call the chamber hands on at midnight on Sunday, and unless this call is accepted no dairy produce may be loaded on Monday. The manager of the Auckland Farmers' Freezing Company. Mr. A. G. Brown, s;oid yesterday* that he hoped for a change in the men's attitude before the call was made. The chamber hands, who receive the produce for export and later load it again, state that recently a verbal agreement was made by. which men called back to work overtime would be guaranteed a minimum of two hours' employment. They state this agreement has not been honoured and th.it one evening last week the men were, required to work only an hour and aquarter. As a result, a lunch-hour meeting was held and tie men decided to refuse the overtime call until the agreement was carried out. j Mr. Brown said yesterday that no arrangement of any kind had been entered into with the men, apart from the terms of the award under which they were working. Unless the men changed their attitude, he said, a position would develop similar to that which recently obtained on the wharves. Ships would be held up and the despatch of dairy produce to England disorganised.

WATERSIDE WORKERS MR. A. P. O SHKA'S CHARGE [BY TELEGRAPH —OWN CORRESPONDENT] wAIP UK U R AIJ, Thursday An indictment of the actions of waterside workers during the present time of national stress whs uttered by Mr. A. P. O'Sliea. Dominion secretary of the Farmers' Union, in an address to farmers at Waipukurau. "This is the only place in the world." he said, "where man can collect £lO to £l2 a week for the most systematised loafing on earth. If a man is doing the job. he is entitled to a rake off. but this systematic loziiing is nothing more or less than racketeering, and I do not care who hears mc say it. Tlio sooner we tell them so the better."