Other formats

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

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 5. March 26 1979

The Bridge Workers Stand Firm

The Bridge Workers Stand Firm

Against the combined hostility of the Master Builders Association, Wilkins and Davies Construction and the government, the 142 workers have put up a successful resistance. They have done this through their own determination and their strong organisation. Just as important has been the support they have received from other unionists, and from students across the country.

The Site Committee, which consists of representatives of both the Carpenters and Labourers unions, maintains constant pickets of the site. Ray Bianchi described the organisation of the resistance: "......we tried to get a lot of blokes to leave and get a job and get a core of about 30 blokes to maintain the pickets, speaking engagements and the dispute. We are about the right number now with 36, There are 24 a day on pickets. There is six each side in the morning and six each side in the afternoon, and they work a four hour shift. That leaves another 12 for speaking engagements, finances and to answer the telephone."

The pickets have been successful. When Wilkins and Davies advertised for new labour, the pickets were strengthened. When a few workers turned up, the picketers explained the issue to them. All of these workers refused to break the picket line.

The workers have staged public protests in Auckland city to win support. The first was on May 31, the day after the mass sacking. There were others on September 22 of last year and February 2, 1979. Shouts of encouragement greeted themarchers as they passed other construction sites, and the representation of unions on the 250-strong February 2 march shows the depth of support: Labourers Union (Northern Branch), Paremoremo Prison workers, Auckland Boilermakers, Auckland Carpenters and Related Trades Union, Marsden B Power Site Workers, and a group of Huntly Power Station Scaf-folders. Support has come from will outside Auckland; the Ocean Beach Freezing workers, the workers in Kaingaroa State Forest, and a number of Wellington Construction sites. This is far from a complete list-and representatives of the workers are touring constantly to put their case and win support. The donations the workers have received have been vital in the survival of their struggle, just as the political support they have received has stopped the government and employers from taking even more extreme measures against the locked out workers.