GISBORNE DEADLOCK

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 147, 24 June 1931, Page 6

GISBORNE DEADLOCK

TWO VESSELS AFFECTED. AUCKLAND GOODS NOT LANDED. GISBORNE, June 20. Gisborne merchants to whom goods had been consigned from Auckland bv the Waimea and Margaret W. were greatly inconvenienced to-day by the refusal of the waterside workers to work the vessels after mid-day. In consequence. the former vessel, already two days’ late on account of the cooks' and stewards’ dispute in Auckland, was diverted to Napier without discharging any of her cargo and will return on Tuesday to do so. The Margaret W. sailed for Auckland at 12.40 p.m., over-carrying 10 tons of her cargo. The wharf labourers to-day refused to carry out their usual practice of working on Saturday afternoon, or to stand up for engagement for the 1 p.m. start. It is understood that it is the intention of the waterside workers to refuse to work any overtime shift on Saturday afternoons, or at night, sumably in sympathy with the men at Wellington, where a similar stand was taken last Saturday. The Waimea arrived from Auckland at 11.40 a.m., but did not come up to the wharf. She proceded to Napier, where she will discharge on Monday. Two vessels in port this morning lost half an hour in picking up labour st the engagement board, while the Waterside Workers’ Union held a meeting, at which the decision not to work after mid-day was reached. “Whatever may be the reason for the waterside workers’ decision they may aptly be described as cutting off their noses to spite their faces in refusing to work at the time when employment of any kind is so difficult to find,” said a representative of one of the shipping companies. “The ordinary rate of par for longshoremen is 2s 4d’an hour, and in the case of the Waimea this afternoon. had the men chosen to work, they would have got a minimum of 4 hours* work at 4s Id an hour for a job which would have taken about two hours. In the ease of the Margaret W.. two gangs would have been brought back, and the men would have received a minimum of throe hours’ work at 4s Id an hour, that figure representing time and threeouarters, the rate of pay offered for Saturday afternoon work.”