WATERSIDE DISPUTE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 246, 16 September 1940, Page 6

WATERSIDE DISPUTE.

REPLY TO MR PRICE. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Sept. 15. Replying to Mr R. E. Price’s charge of inconsistency concerning the watersiders’ protests over the operation of the contract system on the Wellington waterfront, the watersiders’ spokesman (Mr T. N. Warren) states: “At the outset I beg to apologise to Mr Price for having apparently outraged his fine sense of literary accuracy, and hasten to extend my humble thanks tor his kindly advice. However, yve are not dealing with theoretical or academic issues but plain facts. “The union claims that all its members who assist in the work are entitled to participate in any monetary benefits that accrue from the speed-up effort. This surely cannot be construed as a complaint that the blessings of contract do not apply to all waterside workers. It is merely the just claim of the men who are compelled to work under this system. “After the system lias been in operation for some three months we receive at the urgent request of the union -what Mr Price terms a copy of the agreement. Does Mr Price imagine that the union accepts those brief notes as an agreement on a matter of such vital importance. The union claims that, as a party to the contract, the full facts of the agreement should be placed before it for amendment or rejection, and it protests against the arbitrary acceptance of the present so-called co-operative contract. The decision reached was unanimously endorsed by 700 members at the meeting.”