Pickets Persuade Carpenters Not To Recommence Work

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 March 1949, Page 6

Pickets Persuade Carpenters Not To Recommence Work

| AUCKLAND, Last Night (PA).— Carpenters’ Union leaders made an all-out drive from early this morning to prevent carpenters and joiners from starting work after nearly six weeks’ absence. Many of them went back to their jobs following the master builders’ week-end announcement that they would be re-engaged. Some stayed on, but others were persuaded by picketers and a spokesman to go home. The union campaign spread from city assembly points for workers’ transport to factories and housing construction jobs. Police were called to the Wesley State housing block at Owairaka, where a demonstration against one firm was staged by about 26 unionists. An accurate estimate of the number of carpenters who returned to work was not possible tonight. Smaller builders reported attendances of up to 75 and 100 per cent., but comparatively small numbers reported at the big contractors’ jobs. Dozens of carpenters, however, telephoned their former employers and told them that they would start work after the mass meeting in Carlaw Park tomorrow. It was not expected that the carpenters would return to work in large numbers today. Many of the 1600 unionists found temporary work after their dismissal on February 17. Most of them would have to give a week's notice to their present employers, and the announcement that their union had been deregistered and that the former employers were prepared to re-engage them was mane only last Saturday. Pickets succeeded in keeping about 20 joiners away from the factory of one firm today. They waited in the street for them at about 7.30 a.m. Several of the joiners expressed disapproval of the picketing tactics, but said they had no alternative but to return home. Five joiners started work at. a Morningside timber company's factory, but they were not there for long. Two union representatives entered the factory after getting permission from the foreman. They told the men to stop work and the joiners agreed. Twelve union joiners usually work at the factory and the other seven were expected to start tomorrow.

Three union representatives attempted to enter a city joinery factory during the morning to speak to the few unionists who had resumed work- They were refused permission by the management and left.