THE WATERFRONT DISPUTE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23370, 9 December 1937, Page 10

THE WATERFRONT DISPUTE

The temporary cessation of work on the Auckland waterfront has • inevitably caused heavy losses and much inconvenience to shippers and importers, and the news of a settlement, on terms which seem to have vindicated the attitude of the employers, will be welcomed. A suspension of shipping activities must at any time have serious consequences, and these are aggravated in a country such as New Zealand, in which the whole commercial system is dependent upon the maintenance of sea-borne traffic. At this season, moreover, when large quantities of incoming goods are awaited by retailers, and when shipments of wool and other produce abroad are heavy, the cost of delays in the movement of shipping must affect all sections of the community, and must be reckoned in huge figures. The reason for the disagreement in Auckland has not been fully divulged. - Trouble started last week when waterside workers who had accepted a call to work the coastal vessel Waiana on Thursday evening decided to postpone the commencement of operations until the following morning. When they reported at the vessel in the morning, however, the employers’ representatives prevented them from working it. Calls for fresh labour for the vessel were not answered. As the Waiana was made a “preference” ship, no calls for labour for other ships were made while the dispute concerning her remained unsettled, with the consequence that there was no loading or discharging of any vessels in Auckland upon which work had not been commenced, or of any which subsequently arrived. The circumstances in which the suspension of .work originated are not free from obscurity. The comment of a waterside worker is that the original call for the Waiana was “ made too late ” —it was issued at 10 a.m. for 6 p.m. of the same day—and the chairman of the Shipping and Stevedores’ Association has described the refusal to work the Waiana as entirely unconstitutional in the terms of the agreement existing between the waterfront workers and the employers. The employers, he said, could not tolerate such breaches, inspired, as they believed, by a small section of the Waterside Workers’ Union. Upon this decision they determined to take a stand. Numerous conferences failed to procure an agreement by which work could be resumed, with the result that the disorganisation and the unemployment caused through the deadlock threatened to extend in their effects to various industries and among various classes of workers. It is obvious that the dispute—if that is the correct termoriginated with the refusal of a majority of the waterside workers who were called for the Waiana to work the vessel at the time appointed. The terms of settlement indicate that these men are to be disciplined, and on the available facts that is only reasonable. Ample provision exists in this country for the arbitrament of industrial disputes, and it would be difficult to find any cause which would justify the ventilation of a minor grievance in a manner that involves the people generally, to their cost. At the present time signs of industrial unrest in the Dominion are not lacking It would be well if opportunity were now taken by the union officials and the Government to impress clearly on the minds of workers that attempts to blundgeon employers with the threat of strikes is not to be tolerated as a method of correcting real or imagined wrongs.