THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1948. THE MOUNTPARK DECISION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26853, 18 August 1948, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1948. THE MOUNTPARK DECISION

The various aspects of the shameful affair which has become known as the Mountpark dispute were made so confused—deliberately so on the ■ r part of the Auckland branch of the

Waterside Workers’ Union —that the !•; average citizen will have difficulty in recognising the salient features of the decision which has been handed down by the chairman of the tribunal, Mr Justice O’Leary. The significant feature of the decision is that it represents a direct / refutation of all the arguments that have been advanced by the union since work ceased on the Mountpark in May, and on the Broompark on June 30. In other words, the action of the union in holding up work in the largest port in New Zealand and precipitating a grave threat to the economic stability of the whole Dominion has b&en exposed as a wicked and unwarrantable sham, and the watersiders have forfeited • 1 the last vestiges of public sympathy they may have held. It was evident, as the dispute progressed that the hatches of the Mountpark were being made no more than a token excuse for industrial disruption, and ‘ this opinion \ was fortified when the union ran away from a court hearing and attempted—with gross effrontery—to confuse with fresh and irrelevant issues the task of the tribunal which the Government agreed to create. The only section of the ruling in

favour of the union was that devoted x to the initial dispute in February, more than two months before the major crisis occurred. At this time , the hatches were unsatisfactory, not. , because of their weight, but because 1 of defects brought about by normal • wear and tear. The evidence supplied tb the commission in- ; dicated that these defects were made good, but the judge considered that ■> the workers were entitled to their claims for wages over this short

period. In consequence, the water-

■ siders will receive £1299 out of the i £38,449 they demanded. There ■ will be no disputing the opinion of ’ the . Chief Justice that men are entitled to decline work where serious danger exists. He gave point to his argument, however, by expressing it in these terms: A standard of reasonableness has to be established, and if reasonable • men think a particular method of working, or the use of a particular class of gear is dangerous . . . then they are justified in refusing to undertake the work. . . .

In view of the past record of the

~ now notorious Auckland Waterside v ’ Workers’ Union the qualifications of its leaders can hardly be considered as those generally attributed to > “ reasonable men,” nor will the > people of New Zealand regard them ‘ as such until they evince, by their actions, a willingness to work inharmony with the national effort and to produce order out of the industrial chaos they have precipitated.