POWERHOUSE STRIKE

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31108, 11 July 1966, Page 1

POWERHOUSE STRIKE

No Negotiations Likely Today (New Zealand Press Association) INVERCARGILL, July 10. Most of the 200-odd West Arm workers who left the job site by boat and plane on Friday are expected to return by boat late tonight and early tomorrow morning.

The men left the job on Friday after voting unanimously to continue the strike, which brought to a halt work on the £l5 million underground powerhouse at Manapouri last Tuesday morning.

Unless Mr McDonnell and other trade union officials are at West Arm there can be no negotiations between management and union. Under the agreement negotiations must be in the hands of Dunedin union officials.

It is felt in some quarters that Mr McDonnell and others have “wiped their hands of the affair” in view of the refusal of the men to return to work after being advised to do so.

The Utah Construction and Mining Company planned to make both its 80-passenger launches available to take men back at 10 o’clock tonight and 6 o’clock tomorrow morning. Constables will be at Supply Bay, where the boats leave, to ensure that there is no trouble among returning workers.

The police did not act improperly in any way in their duties in connexion with the strike, said Superintendent J. H. Alty, of Invercargill. He was replying to claims by some workers and at least one union official that a police directive to northern Southland hotels on supplying liquor to strikers was “Police State tactics.” POLICE INVESTIGATE

Inspector P. S. Revell was recalled to Invercargill from Te Anau and Senior-Sergeant T. V. Thomson from West Arm on Saturday, and Constable L. Dickie, from Invercargill, was sent to Te Anau to assist Constable E. E. Donnelley.

The superintendent said that he had investigated the alleged police directive to hotelkeepers not to supply liquor to West Arm workers. “The police did have discussions with the publicans and in only one case was an improper directive given.

FURTHER MEETING The workers will hold a further meeting at 9 a m. tomorrow but it is not expected to result in a resumption of work.

“As soon as that directive was brought to the notice of Inspector P. S. Revell, who was on the scene, it was countermanded and a correct directive given. “In my opinion the police have acted quite correctly in their duties concerning this strike,” said the superintendent. He declined to make any further comment or clarify what the directive was. LIQUOR BY AIR

The secretary of the Otago Trades Council (Mr W. C. McDonnell) who, with other union secretaries from Dunedin and Invercargill, left the site on Friday after consultations with union men there, does not plan to return to the site tomorrow.

It is believed that the strikers, who are barred from taking liquor on the launches which run to the work site and whose wet canteen has been closed since the strike began, have been obtaining liquor through the post and even by aeroplane. The West Arm men indicated that, in several cases, attempts by police to search the luggage of men travelling to West Arm had resulted in strong opposition from the men and lack of success on the part of the police. They said they considered the West Arm camp and their individual huts to be "home” and that no-one had any right to decide what they took to or from the camp. They said that if they chose to drink in their huts, and behaved themselves, that was their business.