WATERFRONT POLICY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 June 1940, Page 8

WATERFRONT POLICY

COMMENT ON STATEMENT BY MINISTER QUESTIONS OF WORK & WAGES IMPORTANCE OF SPEEDY DISPATCH. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN. June 26. “It is not so much a matter of rates of pay as of the rate at which the work is dene,” said a business man today, when he was questioned with respect to a recent statement by the Minister of Labour. Mr Webb, in defence of waterside workers.

After referring to the rates which had been in operation in New Zealand. Mr Webb said that work done in the London docks was paid for on a piecework basis. It worked out at 4s an hour for discharge of butter from New Zealand and 3s 8d for cheese. Wool cargoes worked out at 3s Hid an hour, chilled beef 5s L' ( d, general cargo 5s Bd, and apples 8s 9d. Ho admitted that men were not in constant employment, that they might earn the amounts 'stated for only a few days at a time. The Dunedin man said that the figures quoted by the Minister were no doubt correct, but he had entirely overlooked the fact that London dock workers did two or three times as much in an hour as those in New Zealand had done under the wage rates which has been in operation. Moreover a great number of men to whom Mr Webb referred were casual workers and pensioners who worked for only a day or two in the week.

Slowness in the handling of cargo, it was slated, was the major problem which had to be faced in New Zealand. Particulars were given of one case in which a ship spent 564 hours on the coast of the Dominion. Of that time 46 hours 48 minutes was occupied in steaming between ports and 199.1 hours in handling cargo. During the remaining 318 hours the ship was idle. “And this,” the informant added, “happened in war time.”

It was also stated that waterside workers who were engaged from 8 a.m. to midnight on a recent Sunday in unloading a phosphate ship, taking two breaks of an hour for meals, each had to be paid £4 10s 6d for the day’s work.

Mr Webb's references to the Go- ( vernment’s action in instituting the cooperative contract system in order to ; obtain more speedy dispatch of vessels ■ was also the subject of comment, and his statement that under this system bettor results to the extent of 40 per cent had been obtained was regarded as proof that previously there had been "loafing on the job." At the same time it was stated that better work was obtained from waterside workers in Dunedin than from those in anv other part of New Zealand. but it was stated that though Auckland and Wellington had better facilities than any port in the Old Country the rate of work at the home ports was very much higher.