A SPECIAL WHARF GANG

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26641, 11 December 1947, Page 10

A SPECIAL WHARF GANG

Sir,—On October 28 you were good enough to publish my inquiry in reference to the above. On the 26th appeared in the Daily Times the announcement of a special gang of wharf labourers, consisting, among others, of such highlyplaced union satraps as Messrs Barnes, Hill, and Drennan, to work on a “ selected but major waterfront ” for the specific purpose of assisting the Aid to Britain campaign. There was also a suggestion that a stranger in the country should join them. Presumably he has declined, for he is not a wharf labourer, though for that matter neither are the three above-mentioned gentlemen. But, Sir, it is they who made the suggestion, and offered to do the work. What has happened, and where are they working? Under ordinary conditions one would look on this as a type of joke in the lowest taste, but once aid for Britain has been brought into the matter the jest ceases abruptly, and Messrs Barnes, Hill, and Drennan should not be permitted to “ get away with it.” Can the local “ returning officer ” throw any light on the matter, and tell a number of very interested citizens wihere this gang is working?—l am, etc., Bull. [When this letter was referred to the secretary of the Dunedin branch of the New Zealand Waterside Workers’ Union, Mr S. B. Macdonald, he commented that the gang had never existed. If the gentleman spoken of in the letter as “ a stranger in the country.” had accepted the offer to join the special gang of wharf labourers, then the gang would have come into being.—Ed. O.D.T.]