CREW ROUNDED UP BY POLICE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 651, 1 May 1929, Page 1

CREW ROUNDED UP BY POLICE

Arab Firemen Leave Tregenna

VESSEL’S DEPARTURE HELD UP

THE Arab stokehold crew of the Hain Line cargo steamer .Tregenna absented themselves from the vessel without leave this morning and held up the departure of the vessel. The police conducted a search of the city and are rounding up the absentees.

The Tregenna, which has been discharging Nauru phosphates at King’s Wharf for the past few daj T s, was to have sailed for New Plymouth at 11 a.m. to-day, there to continue unloading. As a result of the men’s action she was taken to an anchorage in the stream shortly after 11 o’clock this morning, and will wait there until the crew return and a settlement is reached. The firemen complain that the vessel is short-handed in the stokehold crew, thereby increasing the amount of work for each individual. They voiced their complaints on board, but? as they considered that no satisfaction was received they left the ship. The master complained to the wharf police that the men’s absence was holding up the departure of his vessel, and requested them to exercise the authority they have on such occasions, and round the men up. The police have accordingly been doing so

this morning. They are collecting the absentees and sending them back to the ship, where they may refuse to work if they desire. Beyond this the police are not concerned with the affair. They have the authority to act in that manner when a boat is about to sail. Interviewed by The Sun this morning, Mr. T. F. Anderson, local secretary of the Federated Seamen’s Union, stated that he considered the Tregenna was undermanned and the men overworked. The firemen had asked for two additional members for the stokehold crew, and he thought the request was eminently reasonable. “The vessel should never have left Home manned as she is,” concluded Mr. Anderson. The Auckland manager of the New Zealand Shipping Company, which is acting as agent for the Tregenna’s owners, had no F + °tement to make on the subject.