Labour Lack And Rain At Wharves

Press, Volume C, Issue 29515, 17 May 1961, Page 16

Labour Lack And Rain At Wharves

When the 2750-ton Government-owned motor ship, Moana Roa enters Lyttelton harbour early this morning a berth and labour will be immediately available for her to discharge 335 tons of mixed perishable fruit from Rarotonga. The island trader will also land passengers and it is hoped she wiil leave for Auckland this evening. In the meantime the port congestion continues and the Lyttelton harbourmaster (Captain A. R. Champion), said last evening that it should take a week to 10 days to improve. Nearly 200 men were required to fill the required quota for cargo work yesterday morning and. as a result, several vessels were idle. This situation was accentuated by showers throughout the day which caused a loss of approximately two hours' work. Six vessels were expected to sail yesterday but the only departures eventually were the EHerman liner City of Auckland, the Holmbum. and the Swedish express cargo - passenger vessel, Cumulus. Lack of labour and rain hindered the departure of the Mystic, for Dunkirk, and the coasters, Tiroa and Holmlea, for the North Island. Vessels Idle Vessels idle yesterday were the cargo liner, Sussex, newly-arrived from anchorage at the heads, the intercolonial freighter, Komata. and two coasters, the Poranui and Maranui. Crew gangs were employed aboard several other vessels to reinforce available waterfront labour. These ships were the Port Melbourne, Port Dunedin, Waimea and Tiroa. Three vessels will berth from the anchorage today. They are the phosphate vessel, Cape Wrath, which will require a large number of railway trucks, at present in reasonable supply according to the port railway superintendent (Mr N. J. Montgomery), the inter-colonial freighter, Kaituna, and the Indo-China Navigation Company’s vessel. Eastern Argosy, with cargo from the East The diversion of the intercolonial vessels Karitane. and Kaitoke, the coastal motor vessel, Maunganui. and now

the British freighter, Galway, will provide some temporary relief, but the Van Neck, which was temporarily diverted last week, was due off the heads from Timaru, last evening. Two other vessels which temporarily by-passed Lyttelton earlier, are now due here by the week-end. They are the Wairata with Eastern cargo and the Dutch vessel, Friesland. with West European cargo. A situation which could have caused even further delays was averted by the decision of the Harbour Board crane drivers to postpone their normal monthly stopwork meeting to be held last evening, until another occasion. Some cranes will be idle, but had this labour not been available it would have caused a serious blow to any early hopes of reducing the congestion. The superintendent of the Department of Labour (Mr C P. Collins) commended the crane drivers on their decision to forego their regular monthly meeting so that the large number of vessels in the port could be worked. “They have shown an excellent spirit in meeting the Harbour Board's request that they work overtime. Their decision showed a co-opera-tive attitude between union and management,” Mr Collins said.