THE WATERFRONT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24254, 23 March 1940, Page 10

THE WATERFRONT

HOLIDAY DISPUTE NO WORK ON MONDAY CONTROLLER POWERLESS UNABLE TO INTERVENE (Per United Press Association) AUCKLAND, Mar. 22. As no settlement has been reached after more than a year of dispute between the shipowners and the Auckland branch of the Waterside Workers' Union on the question of work on holidavs no action is being taken bv the union in response to a request to handle cargoes on three overseas ships on Easter Monday. The shios, aggregating more than 34,000 tons, comprise two with cargoes from Great Britain and one to load nroduce Homeward.

Following a request from the Shipowners' Federation that the three vessels should be worked the Controller of the waterfront at Auckland. Mr R. E. Price,. called a meeting of both parties on his return from Wellington on Thursday. No action was taken by the meeting. Explaining his position in a statement issued after the conference, Mr Price said that aoplication was made to him bv the federation at Wellington on Wednesday. As the current awards provide that any work on holidavs must be by arrangement between the union and the employers concerned, and as the regulations administered by the Controller did not confer upon him powers to alter or vary an award in any way, Mr Price said he had no jurisdiction to demand that the men should work on Easter Monday. " However," the controller said, " I called a meeting of the parties to discuss the position and learned from that meeting that holiday work was the subject of a long-standing dispute which had been referred to the National Disputes Committee a long time ago. No decision has yet been given, and in the circumstances I am unable to enforce Easter Monday work on the three vessels." A representative of the employers stated that until the end of 1938 the men of the Auckland union gave good co-operation in working on holidays, pay being on a doubletime basis. During a holiday at the end of that year non-unionists were given work after union labour had declined. A dispute had then arisen and had not yet been settled.