STRIKE AT AUCKLAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 December 1943, Page 3

STRIKE AT AUCKLAND

GASWORKS EMPLOYEES FOUR HUNDRED MEN OUT INCREASED WAGES DEMAND (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, December 20. Four hundred gas employees and allied tradesmen ceased work at the Auckland Gas Company’s works this morning and the plant is idle. The company states that as a result of the strike the containers will be empty tomorrow morning and if the works are not in operation tomorrow some 40,000 homes dependent upon the supply as their only means of cooking, may be without gas during Christmas. The rejection by the men of a recent finding of the disputes committee concerning the union’s earlier demand for a 20 per cent increase in wages, is said to be the cause of the strike. The curtailment of the gas supply affects about 200 industrial establishments, including many engineering and essential manufacturing concerns, as well as some hundred clothing factories. The extent of the demand from some of these industries is revealed in the fact that two of the biggest draw off each day as much gas as would supply towns such as Hamilton, New Plymouth and Napier.

UNCONSTITUTIONAL ACTION STATEMENT BY UNION OFFICIAL WELLINGTON. This Day. “It is regrettable that the Auckland workers did n.ot act according to their constitution,” said the' vice-president of the New Zealand Gasworkers' Union. Mr J. Huggan, Petone, commenting last night on the Auckland strike. “I was never informed about the position at Auckland and neither was the national secretary, Mr M. J. O'Reilly,” continued Mr Huggan. “At the meeting of the national executive on Tuesday we were unable to get the result of the inquiry into the Auckland dispute. In the opinion of the executive at that meeting this dispute has not gone through constitutional channels, and. so far as I am personally concerned, it cannot and will not affect the gas industry in the Wellington area.” Mr Huggan added that there was no trouble in the works at Petone.