MORE TROUBLE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1354, 3 February 1912, Page 4

MORE TROUBLE.

COAL-HULK! KEEPERS' DEMANDS. It never rains but it pours. After the waterside workers', seamen's, and tramway men's troubles conies a demand from another set of workers—this time the coal-hulk keepers of Wellington llarbour. From inquiries made it was elicited that the average wage paid to a coal-hulk keeper at this port is .£2 Bs. per week and lodging! One is known to get as high as <£0 a week, but ho is an old hand, who has obtained tho higher wage by individual endeavour. The men are supposed to work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily (Sundays excepted), with an hour for dinner, but the keepers say that their working hours often begin at (i a.m. owing to their having to gel. up steam and shift ship. They further state, that during the dinner hour they have to attend to the ftmiaccs to keep up si earn,, and'of a night liavo to "bank-up" and ninn the bilge pumps, all of which work thoy now ask should count as overtime. Theft demands in brief are that they should receive .£3 a week as a minimum, and overtime for all odd work done in ofl'honrs.

The coal-hulk koepers are not members of any union, but there is a movement afoot to create a branch union of the Waterside Workers' Union, so thut if the latter body is at any time called out they could not be asked to coal a ship. Their fear is that if any trouble of the kind should arise, v the whole of their number could be asked to man one hulk and coal ship, which would not be tho case wero they members of tho union. While admitting that they are provided with free lodgiiigSj,(on the hulks), they argue that, unlike'" other workers,- they have on occasions to "man the pumps" to keep their homes afloat, work from which the land-dweller is immune. The men have held two or three informal meetings, and aro to hold a full meeting to-morrow (Sunday). Mr. G. G. Farland, secretary of tho Waterside Workers' Union, is handling their case.

There are 20 hulks in the harbour, the majority of which are owned by the Union S.S. Company, the others by the WestpArt Coal Company, the State Coal Department, the Wanganui Steam Packet Company, and the Blackball Coal Company.