STRIKE OF WATERSIDERS

Taranaki Daily News, 14 February 1933, Page 6

STRIKE OF WATERSIDERS

NEW PLYMOUTH WORK STOPS DISPUTE OVER RATES OF WAGES. SHELTERS ASK ADDITIONAL PAY. HANDLING OF SLAG THE QUESTION A strike of waterside workers employed unloading slag from the Commonwealth and Dominion Line steamer Port Napier occurred at the port of New Plymouth yesterday afternoon. Men working on trucks on the wharf at 3.40 p.m. refused to handle slag as it was slung from the ship, and work ceased immediately. No more unloading was done yesterday. The stoppage. arose from a claim for extra . wages made in the morning by sheeters, whose work it is to fix the tarpaulins over the tops of trucks after they have been lorded. An additional rate of 6d per hour is paid to watersiders handling slag on the ships and in the trucks, and under the previous award was made also to sheeters. Under the present award; however, no additional rate for sheeters is provided for, it having been agreed they do not handle the slag. A claim for the additional 6d an hour was made by the sheeters when labour was called for the Port Napier, which arrived from Auckland the previous day. The claim was made a dispute, and in accordance with the provisions of the existing award was referred to the local disputes committee. It was contended by the Waterside Workers’ Union representatives to the committee, it is understood, that sheeters did handle slag, as there were occasions when men in trucks left the trucks and the sheeters took their places and when the sheeters had to make a ridge in the middle of the truck’s load to ensure that the covering should be waterproof. After consideration the committee refused to agree to the payment of the additional rate. 1 Alternatives, it is understood, were offered by the committee, but were declined by the Waterside Workers’ Union representatives.

In the normal course of affairs a dispute which cannot be settled by a local disputes committee must, according to the terms of the award, be placed.before an arbitrator who is called in or be referred to the national disputes committee, while work proceeds in the meantime under the conditions existing before the dispute arose. The eight men employed bn the four trucks into which slag was being ,discharged elected, however, to employ strike tactics. At 3.40 p.m. slings being sent down from the ship’s hold found no one in the trucks to receive them; With none to place the slag in the trucks Work ceased immediately and the men working in the ship left the vessel. There were about 50 men working in the Port Napier in four gangs. On the wharf there were eight men in the trucks and eight. sheeters, two of each working on each of four trucks. Overtime was to have been worked from six to ten o’clock last night.