WATERSIDE WORKERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 June 1941, Page 3

WATERSIDE WORKERS

PROFITEERING ALLEGED. ATTACK BY FARMER. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) NEW PLYMOUTH, June 9. ‘’There is an uneasy feeling abroad that part, at least, of the trouble we are in with respect to the shipping of our produce has been due to the unsatisfactory handling of produce on the waterfront,” said Mr W. A. Sheat at the South Taranaki annual conference of the Farmers’ Union in Hawera today. “There is still too much secrecy surrounding the conditions on the waterfront relating to the handling of our produce, while conditions relating to every other occupation are public property. No one is permitted to know the conditions enjoyed by that select aristocracy of labour, the waterside workers. “There exists on the waterfront today a condition of dictatorship,” continued Mr Sheat. “A waterfront commission, consisting at the moment of Messrs Roberts and Price, exercises complete control over the loading of ships. They fix conditions and no one outside the circle is allowed to know what those conditions are. All we know is that they are sufficiently high to involve a large element of war profiteering. “I understand a 'vacancy exists on the commission as a result of the retirement of the third member, and I suggest that the importance of the business to all producers warrants the appointment of a producers’ representative to that commission.”