Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 29, No. 13. 1966.

Thurbage

page 4

Thurbage

A Column Of Freelance Comment

A New Strike by ship owners is shaking up the wharf. It blew up over working conditions in a big shipping company's office on Lambton Quay.

Ship owners are claiming an extra sixpence an hour for working with ball point pens weighing more than half an ounce.

"The regulations state quite clearly that extra rates are Paid for the heavier pens. When we were refused the extra rates I called a stop to work in our Lambton Quay office. We should be getting dirt money for handling ball points anyway."

A representative of the wharfies said that pens were normally weighed without their caps on.

"This is a complete break with precedent. How can we be expected to run an efficient wharf when strikes are going to blow up like this all the time."

"If the ship owners are going to strike every time something crops up—shipping costs are going to shoot up.

"We're planning a protest strike if something isn't done soon ..."

Sir Arthur Blimp, Chairman of the Profit Shipping Line commented on the wharfies' statement.

"It's all right for them ... sitting outside in the sun, with half-hour tea breaks. What about us in the offices who have to work an eight hour day? It's about time we got stoop money for sitting at our desks all day. It's about time management stuck up for its rights in this country."

Is The Presence of students in the security service hindering the work of security policemen?

This is one of the questions that the Commission of enquiry into demonstrations by security policemen against a student, "Thurbage" (who worked in the service) must answer.

Security police, waving banners with slogans such as "freedom to spy a basic human right" entered the Hawkestone Street premises of the security service to demand the removal of Thurbage—who was sweeping up and quietly copying documents at the time.

"Conversation in the tea room is severely restricted since we found out Thurbage is a student," one agent told me, "Thurbage is a nice chap, but you never know what they do with the files at the Students Association do you?"

The demonstration was provoked by an article in the security service's house magazine "Incognito" that alleged the presence of a student was hindering agents in their work.

A statement by the President of the Victoria Students Association, Mr. John Maccaw, that "neither Thurbage nor any other student has been directed to work at the security service" has not satisfied security policemen.

Thurbage has been barred from the tea room of the service since the incident and questions have been asked in the house.

I talked to Thurbage, a mild mannered four foot dwarf with warts.

"Of course I'm not upset," he told me. "The Brigadier offered me individual sweeping up and document copying work. But I've declined. I've never acted In my capacity as a student while I've been in the service. I mean it would be quite unethical to use one's brains in there, wouldn't it?"

"I've got no grudge against the service. They do a good Job. The fact that Holyoake's managed to keep his secret plan on Rhodesia secret, is a tribute to the service.

I asked Thurbage whether he resented being barred from the Hawkestone Street tea room.

"Not really, The brew itself is dishwater. For some reason they won't use tea from China ...."