SHIPS DELAYED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26531, 5 August 1947, Page 4

SHIPS DELAYED

DUNNAGE DISPUTE £IO,OOO LOST IN WAGES OUTLOOK UNCERTAIN p.A. AUCKLAND, Aug. 4. The programmes of all the large ships in the Port of Auckland are being seriously delayed by the prolonged waterfront dunnage dispute. Shipping companies to-day announced further postponements in the departure dates of vessels. The departure of the New Zealand Shipping Company’s liner Rangitiki, taking 780 passengers to New York and London, has been set back another three days .to August 12. The Union Company's' passenger motor ship Matua, taking more than 100 passengers to Suva and Island ports, will now leave on Thursday instead of to-morrow. The Shaw Savill and Albion motor ship Waiwera, with 116 passengers for Liverpool, is now listed to sail late in the month instead of on August 14, and the British-Indian motor ship Chanda, taking passengers to Sydney, has been given an indefinite sailing date. More Vessels Coming Unless work is resumed to-morrow, two incoming ships will join those waiting for labour. They are the Derryheen, which arrived to-night from New York, and the Maui Pomare, which will arrive to-morrow from Rarotonga with passengers and Island produce. More than half the membership of the Auckland branch of the Waterside Workers’ Union, 1137 men, were on a three-day penalty to-day for refusing employment in the hatches of the five ships from which workers had been dismissed for not laying dunnage. Considerably more than £IO,OOO has already been lost in wages as a result of the dispute, which began on July 23. After a meeting of the union executive this morning, a stop-work meeting of the branch discussed the' dispute and the port was at a stand-still until the 1 p.m. start. Although a section of the workers favoured an immediate return to work, the meeting decided to leave the matter to the ~union’s national executive, which will meet to-morrow in Wellington.

The Auckland and national president, Mr H. Barnes, subsequently left for Wellington by train. The delay in reaching a settlement is perturbing shipping officials. The Minister of Labour, ,Mr McLagan, stated on July 25 that tlje union had been advised that the ' Government took a most serious view of the Auckland branch’s “most unwarranted breach” and that the union had been asked to submit reasons- why the Labour Department should not recommend proceedings under the Strikes and Lock-out Emergency Regulations. Since then the union has made proposals to the Government which have not been accepted. Prime Minister in Touch It is understood that the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, who visited Auckland at the week-end. is closely in touch with the situation and the Minister of Labour has been in frequent telephone contact with Auckland on the subject. The original cause of the issue, the claim by the ship carpenters’ section of the union for an extra 6d an hour, has not been looming largely in the extension of the dispute, although it is reported that the union was prepared to drop this matter if the men placed on penalty were given recompense for the time lost. Some waterside workers feel strongly the fact that the carpenters are in steady employment while they are being placed on penalty for supporting them. The shipping companies showed today, by the many indefinite sailing dates, that they are uncertain what the future, including the meeting of the national executive, holds and they, are looking to the Government to end the impasse.