The "wharfies," who have been without a contract since December, are fighting for a single collective agreement covering all dockworkers.

One handmade sign on the picket line demanded that all workers be made permanent. At present the unionized workforce is divided into two categories: "casuals," who earn $12.50 an hour, and "permanents," who can earn up to $11 an hour more. (NZ$1=US 41 cents).

"They want to create a labour pool that can be turned off and on," Denis Carlisle, the union's Auckland branch president, was quoted as saying in the June 22 New Zealand Herald. "We'll end up with a labour pool of $14 wharfies."

The union has said it will continue its campaign by carrying out a 48-hour strike beginning June 28, and a one-week strike beginning July 4.

The Auckland action comes in the wake of a series of pickets by Waterfront Workers Union members at several South Island ports over recent months, protesting the loading of logs by timber company Carter Holt Harvey using nonunion casual labor. That dispute remains unresolved.

In another development, the Council of Trade Unions has condemned what it called the "very minor" sentence given to company manager Derek Powell, who drove through a picket line at the port of Lyttleton in December 1999, killing union supporter Christine Clark. A jury had found Powell guilty of manslaughter, but in sentencing him to only nine months of periodic detention the judge also placed blame on the picketing workers. It was "dangerous" if freedom of movement on the roads was interrupted by pickets, he said, and Powell's claim that he failed to stop because of fear was "understandable."

Terry Coggan is a member of the National Distribution Union in Auckland.  
 
 
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