N.Z. WATERSIDERS ARE NOT IN THE COMINFORM THEIR LEADERS SAY

Wanganui Chronicle, 26 January 1948, Page 5

N.Z. WATERSIDERS ARE NOT IN THE COMINFORM THEIR LEADERS SAY

(P.A.) Wellington, Jan. 23. A denial that there was a link up of any kind between the New Zealand Watersiders and the “Comminform,” was given tonight in a statement by the president of the New Zealand Waterside Workers’ Union, Mr. H. Fames of Auckland, end the secretary, Mr. T. Hill. They were replying to allegations contained in a cabled message from Sydney which reported that Communist Party leaders in Australia expected to announce shortly the forming of a Pan-Pacific Secretariat of Wharf and Shipping Workers.

’’li'.s sounds ju.t lik> the Zinoviev letter which was successfully used to defeat the British Labour Party in Britain in 1924,” said Messrs. Barnes and Hill. “The object of the New Zen .ind Waterside Workers is eicser collaboration with the waterside workers in the Pacific area. Any suggestion of political interference, domination or even sponsorship by any political party will be flatly rejected by us. We are confident it will be similarly rejected by other waterside workers throughout the Pacific.” Messrs. Barnes and Hill said they deeply resent the Inference contained in the cabled message that security police in Australia are linking them with the Comminform, “or any other form.” The New Zealand Waterside Workers' Union policy on international link-ups with other groups of workers was laid down long before they had held office and the idea of closer collaboration between the watersiders in New Zealand and other Pacific countries was in line with the policy of the New Zealand Federation of Labour. “If there is one industrial union in the country that has a traditional policy of refusing to be an appendage of any political machine, it is the Waterside Workers’ Union,” concluded Messrs. Hill and Barnes.