Pickets Posted At Station And Otahuhu Shops

Wanganui Chronicle, 22 December 1950, Page 6

Pickets Posted At Station And Otahuhu Shops

AUCKLAND, Last Night (PA). Pickets were placed at vantage points at the Auckland railway station and the Otahuhu railway workshops today. A spokesman for the strikers said this action had been taken t© prevent nonunion labour being employed on duties normally carried out by members of the three second division organisations. The picket lines would be expended if necessary. No untoward incidents had occurred during the day.

Two oil-fired locomotives are being kept with a head of steam up at the Auckland engine sheds. They are manned by members of the Railway Officers’ Institute qualified as enginedrivers, and are being kept in readiness as a safety measure so that the sheds cobld be emptied in case of fire. They will also be used to provide steam to boost the oil-fired locomotives when the strike is over.

A spokesman for the strikers said tonight that the railwaymen in the Auckland area had not been paid today. In the normal course of events, fortnightly pay is not due, in most cases, until next Thursday, but it had been expected that envelopes would have been distributed today so that the workers would have had the money for Christmas. The railway strike had only slight repercussions on the Auckland waterfront today. The vessels chiefly affected were two homeward-loading produce ships, the Ceramic and Haparangi. Their dairy and meat cargoes are carried in refrigerated rail waggons from the cool stores and freezing works. No produce was moved by rail today, and both ships loaded only general cargo.

Railway workers permitted the Auckland Farmers’ Freezing Co. employees to move trucks of butter from the railway yards to the cool stores. All perishable produce was clearer from the yards this afternoon. Coal stocks at lhe King’s Wharf power station will be exhausted tomorrow, but the station will be shut down from tomorrow night until January 5.