JOBS AT THE WHARF

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1968, 27 January 1914, Page 6

JOBS AT THE WHARF

" WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS.'! HOW FARE THE NEW WORKERS ? HARBOUR BOARD FIGURES. WHAT AN ANALYSIS SHOWS. The figures quoted by Mr. R. Fletcher, chairman of tho Harbour Board, at its last mooting havo by no means satisfied the executive of tho new Watersido Union that tho board is sincere in its desire to carry'out its own, resolution to give preference to men who came forward and offered their services in. strike time.

"There aro wheels within wheels," said a'member of the executive, discussing the business with a reporter yesterday. "We say that tho Harbour Board or tho Harbour .Board officials are putting their .heads together to..tantaliso mul victimiso tho men who helped to keep-the port open when tho old union went'on' strike.

What tho Board Counted as "New Hanrfs."

'"You will remembor that at tlie.last Harbour Board meeting Mr. Fletcher quoted a tabulated list. Well, from that list-wo took one day—January 19 —■ for examination;-' On this day ; Mr. Fletcher states th6re"was a'totaTof 610 1 men employed, of which' 155' were old hands and 455 new. hands.; 'Oil the faao of them, these figure's ■ would lead tho public to beliovo-that tho 'new' hands referred to wero Arbitrationists—pn>ference men, who joined the union on cr before Docember 8. Wo havo compiled a list of all such men,,and it totals 2052. IWO also inspected the Harbour Board's time-book for January 19, and from that :we wore able to find out how many of the men employed wero really men entitled to preference under tho beard's resolution. 'After making a liberal .allowance, for all duplicate names—there migtic bo, say, three T. Browns —and classing every one of them as new men} wo make tho actual' jiumbers engaged on that day 340 new hands, and 266 old hands. This leaves four men unaccounted for. Tho names of these four, were undecipherable. "When these figures were • shown to ono of the Harbour Board officials who had had most, to.do with compiling the list, and when it was pointed out to him that they really implied that tho men referred to asi 'new hands 1 were preference men who had joined before December 9, ho stated that, in his list 'new hands' meant simply hands who were now • ill tho Harbour Board's employment. Ho .admitted! that many of these wero men who had. como into the union sinco, tho strike was declared off. Some ( had come from the Drivers' Union. Roal Point to Sift. "It would be interesting to know also (continued the informant) not; only the days on which tho preference men were employed, but also the number of hours per day that thev wero kept at work. For instance, we havo before us tho case of a man who joined the union on December 8, and lias worked for tho Harbour Board ever since. He has had very little work sinco tho strike entlei. Last week 110 worked 21 hours, and this week; which finishes to-morrow night, ho has worked only nine hours. This morning he worked two hours en the Queen of"tlio South. On that, short job only ono of the old hands was"dllctted, but other old hands wero i>ut on to jobs which lasted all day, while Arbitrationists had to walk about doing nothing. This man is married, and he has a family to keep. We have many other • cases on all fours .with this 0110. Our chief complaint is that new men pet the poor jobs which finish in an hour or two, while Alio old hands get tiie steady work and the overtime." Ho went on to state that, although Mr. Fletcher accuses the shipping companies of failing to givo preference, they are - employing a greater proportion of preference' men than the Harbour Jioard. .