HANDLING OF CARGO

Southland Times, Issue 24827, 20 August 1942, Page 4

HANDLING OF CARGO

EMPLOYERS’ STATEMENT

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, August 19. Replying to a statement made by the Waterfront Controller, Mr R. E. Price, about work on the wharves, the secretary of the New Zealand Waterfront Employers’ Association said: “That the public should be left with a false impression that all is well with cargo handling at New Zealand ports is not to be desired. Even allowing for the Waterfront Control Commission’s ability and facility for quoting figures, it is difficult to credit that Mr Price seriously believes such is the case. In actual fact the handling of cargo at the main New Zealand ports is substantially the same as before the inception of the commission, and the Waterside Employers’ Association maintains that there is room for a vast improvement. It was fair to give members of the commission credit for striving to bring about improvements in the rate of work, but in the opinion of the Employers’ Association the commission had come up against the position that any move towards an improvement that might appear to trespass on the socalled hard-won privileges of the watersiders was doomed to failure. _ It could be understood that the commission was not prepared to. admit that in a Press statement or public address, such as that delivered by Mr Price to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce, but a statement which implied there was no longer cause for concern about the rate of cargo handling at New Zealand ports generally should not, in the opinion of the Employers’ Association, be allowed to 'go unchallenged.