WATERFRONT ISSUE YET UNSOLVED

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5320, 5 February 1947, Page 5

WATERFRONT ISSUE YET UNSOLVED

(Press Assn.-

COMMISSION'S PUfTORE TO BE DISCUSSED BY CABINET AND PARTIES

—By Telegraph — Copyrighi.)

WELLINGTON, Last Night. Oue of the problems left unsolved when the Government, a fortnight ago, saw normal work restored in the ports throughout New Zealand, is about to be returned to its doorstep. This is the question of the f Uture organisation of the waterfront industry, and, more immediately of the fate of the present Waterfront Industry Commission. Whether it will be able t'o keep functioning in its present form - has? become a- matter of grave doubt. ' It will be the subject of discussions between' .the Government and the interested parties- within the next few daysj The early return to importance of the waterfront dispute has not caused much surprise to the Government. The net result of all the negotiations and discussions during the seven and adialf weeks in whieh the Waterside Workers' Union followed their "No overtime" po-licy as a mfeans of pressing their wages and other claims was not the final settlement of the dispute, but merely the re-opening of the existing constitutional means of negotiating the workers' demands. The union went back to normal work on the basis of (1) the Government's offer to lift the Waterfront Industry Commission out of its state of suspension, and (2)" a series of relatively non-committal opinions on the prospects of an amicable settlement of the union's four-point demands. If there were any guarantees going further than that, they were not put in writiiig. In any case the Government has denied that there were any other terms of settlement. All that happened, therefore, is that the parties to 'the dispute started again where they had left off .when the negotiations brolce down. The commission lhet again last Friday week to reopen the discussion of the union's first claim — for guaranteed daily attendance money — and got exactly nowhere. It adjourned indefinitely. Whai is about to happen within the next few days is that the commission, through its chairman, Mr. Justice Ongley, will submit a report to the Government on the progress — in other words, the failure — of its resumed deliberation of the dispute. The belief is being freely expressed that the report cannot be anything but so unfavourable to the practicability c-f the present system of waterfront control that it will sound the death knell of the commission as now constituted and empowered. Its failure is held to lie chiefly in the fact that the workers' and employers' members of it are also executive officers of the union and the shipo.wners respectively. Particularly in the case of the union, -which has on the pommission its president, Mr. II. Barnes, and an executive member, Mr. J. Flood, they have proved unable on important issues to submerge the policies of their separate interests in favcur of a single policy for the commission. Onus on Chairman? The results of this has been to throw the onus of cdmmission decisions on the independent chairman, Mr. Justice Ongley. This happened in the case of the guaranteed wage claim. The chairman's judgment, however, did not match the union's policy and therefore the union's •members on the commission refused to accept it. Unless there can be some guarantee that the authority of the commission will not again brelak down in this way it would not be surprising if Mr. Justice Ongley decided that his position is untenable and informed the Government that he was not prepared. to carrys on. Serious consideration is already being given to alternative methods of control. One possibility is the reconstruction of the commission as a tribunal appointfed by the Government, somewhat on the lines of the Arbitration Court, but they would 1 ave to be divcrced from their original interests in every respect iOutside of their experience ' and sympathies. Some people closely connected with. the waterfront industry who are looking for o long-term solution to its majcr problems believe that drastic reorganisation will sooner or later be necessary. They envisage a system whieh will recognise that the primary responsibility. for the efficient working of the ports rests with the workers themselves. It would require them to accept the responsibility by turning the union into- a co-operative concern which would contract for' the working of ships and decide for itself the rates of pay, bonuses and other conditions of its members.