A LIVELY SCENE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21733, 26 August 1932, Page 10

A LIVELY SCENE

AN AWARD AND ITS REVISION DISCUSSION AT HARBOUR BOARD EMPLOYMENT OF DOCK HANDS " A heated debate, not untingcd with acrimony in its final stages, and requiring several emphatic rings on the chairman’s bell, before calm was restored, enlivened proceedings at the meeting of the Otago Harbour Board last evening when Mr A. Campbell addressed some insistent questions to the chairman (Mr J. Loudon) on the subject of a recent interpolation into the waterside workers’* award. Several members joined into the argument with a view to explaining that the originator of the discussion was making his representations through the wrong channel, but the affair concluded on a very indecisive note when the meeting decided to refer; the whole matter of the award to the next meeting of the board. Mr Campbell’s, complaint was that a clause had been included jn the employers’ demands, which in effect meant that the board, in the matter of men required on the dock at Port Chalmers could select the labour it wanted, irrespective of whether the men chosen were unionists or not. The board’s officers had expressed themselves quite satisfied with the old conditions, and yet here was a new clause suddenly making its appearance. It was not right. The question which Mr Campbell addressed with melodramatic force to the chairman was, “ Who put that clause into the agreement? I want to know, and I’m going to find out.” The chairman said he’ had not the faintest idea who was responsible for it. f Mr Campbell: As a matter of fact I know quite well who put it in. Voices: Well, tell the chairman. Mr Campbell: Oh, I’m not quite the fool that some of you think I am. I know all right. Mr D. F. H. Sharpe: Well, why ask? Mr Campbell: I want to know. And what’s more I am going to move that it be struck Out of the agreement. If the chairman does not know who put it in, then it has no right to be there, and it- must be struck out. It gives this hoard the right to pick its labour where it likes. It’s free labour against union labour, and as long as I am a member of this board it is not going to do things in the “ hole and corner ” way in which this clause was “ rung in.” Several interjections were heard at this stage, but Mr Campbell demanded fiercely that he should be told who was responsible for the clause. The chairman’s assurance that he did not know wqjild not suffice, and with repeated cries of: “I know who did it,” Mr Campbell insisted on knowing. Mr F. Tyson then rose and endeavoured to explain that the board as a member of the association of employers of waterside labour had agreed to it through its assessor at a conference held in Wellington. Mr Campbell was merely wasting the time of the board in trying to get it deleted at that meeting. Members would not agree 1 to it in any case, and Mr Campbell’s'only recourse was to get into touch with Mr Roberts in Wellington and let him take the matter up. There would probably be no great difficulty about it, as it was-not of great importance, but it was useless for him to expect the board to do it. Mr Campbell: If that clause went into the agreement without the consent and knowledge of -the board it has to come out now. Those tactics are no good to me as long as I am a member of this board. Then it came again. “ Tell me who made the alteration and I’ll sit down.” Mr D. F. H. Sharpe: Mr Campbell should lodge his objections through the central organisation of the union, and not through the board, which is a party to the arrangement. The chairman; I think Mr Campbell had better take what steps he can to have the clause deleted, but he must do it elsewhere. Mr Campbell: I shall do no such thing. I have asked a question and I want an answer to it. Mr Loudon: I have told you that I do not know, but I suppose the engineer and the harbour master to whom the matter was referred must know , something about it. < . . Mr Campbell: Then I shall ask them. Voices; No. No. That is not right. The board cannot allow that sort of thing. Mr Campbell: All right, you simply throw suspicion on these men, at least in my mind.

Mr H. E. Moller: But that is non■ense, seeing you know already. Then commenced a heated exchange of personalities which were interrupted by . the insistent ringing of the chairman’s bell. Points of order were raised, and the discussion continued spasmodically to little or no effect, and finally the whole question of the award was referred to next meeting.