fiji talanoa

Rampaging unions problem for new government

Bright young public relations director from New York, Mr. Lee Laino, was talking about his com pany’s attitude towards investment in the South Pacific. “Both Flagship and American Airlines are very bullish about the South Pacific,” he said.

"You know that word down here?

Means aggressive, enthusiastic."

Flagship Hotels, a subsidiary of American Airlines, is looking forward to the opening of its first Fiji hotel at Pacific Harbour on September 1.

Executives are busily planning two lavish official openings in November, with top travel industry personnel from Australasia being entertained during one three-day weekend and invitees from North America being allocated the other.

The company is also considering hotel involvement at Denarau, the resort development planned for Nadi Bay, and in early April was said to be close to signing an agreement.

Flagship is only one of several in ternational hotel companies, buying into Fiji tourism. There are of course oil companies and breweries and land developers and restaurateurs and all manner of other potential investors (“and what was that about JAL?”) —• all bullish about Fiji.

But aggression of another kind is an established part of the Fiji scene and it’s one that threatens to cancel out the other, if the latest muscle flexing ever becomes full-scale ram page. At the time of writing, the secretary of the Airline Workers’

Union, Mr. Apisai Tora, had an nounced that his union would go on strike because of a wage dispute with Qantas. He hadn’t said when — just "in our own good time”.

It takes me back to 1967, when, visiting Fiji for the first time (with the prime purpose of eulogising about its tourist attractions), I stepped off the plane with a group of journalists to find the airport workers on strike.

Their union, later deregistered, was led by Tora. The dispute was with Qantas —and the timing coincided with the annual tourism convention.

At that time even the parliamentary

opposition was on strike, having walked out of the House en masse that September over a political issue.

The then colony had been bedevilled by industrial unrest for weeks. At one stage, more than 1,000 men were refusing to work, either because of wage demands or in support of other unions - When I got home 1 wrote for an Australian newspaper a piece which some enthusiastic sub-editor entitled “Trouble in Paradise". It certainly

fiji talanoa

With Sue Wendt, In Suva

didn't please the tourist officials who’d invited me—but it was true.

You can’t hide nasty facts from visitors, as Mr. Tora is well aware.

Fiji’s need to present only its best face to tourists is one of Mr. Tora’s

strengths.

In April, it looked certain that Nadi Airport would soon be the scene of another major stoppage, in ail likeli hood during the South Pacific Festival of Arts between May 6-20.

There’d been speculation that the strike would occur during the general elections in late April, because the government might be expected to be in a state of disarray. Then the bet ting swung to the Arts Festival, be cause of the ready-made publicity.

Television cameras would be there.

And National Geographic. And big names like Laurance Rockefeller.

And thousands of tourists, a great many of them from neighbouring islands.

The talks between the union and Qantas broke down completely at the beginning of April, with the unionists demanding a basic wage of $4O, which Qantas said was an increase of 198 per cent, and out of the question.

Qantas was offering a rise of 8c an

hour, bringing the basic rate to 40c an hour, backdated to December.

Other aspects of working conditions were also included in the union’s claims. Suva Chamber of Commerce members describing the airport workers’ demands as entirely un reasonable and likely to frighten away investment. The unionists were un perturbed and said that as well as striking against Qantas, they would boycott all French commercial and military aircraft passing through Nadi Airport.

This was to be their contribution to protests against the French tests at Mururoa Atoll, they explained.

Conveniently, it would coincide with the strike action against Qantas.

Qantas hasn’t been the only airline confronted by Mr. Tora in recent

months. In March, after drawn-out negotiations, the union won a 30 per cent, pay increase from Air India, with 20 per cent, backdated to August 16 last year when the log of claims was submitted.

In mid-April, strike action on the part of 150 construction men at Nadi Airport forced shutdown of work on runway improvements. The strike fol lowed the dismissal of a man by the New Zealand-based contractor, Wil kins and Davies Construction Co., after he allegedly punched a foreman.

The Building Workers’ Union and the company sought conciliation and the matter was expected to be dealt with

quickly by Labour Department

officials.

In April, Suva’s wharves were having their share of trouble.

Rumours were rife of intimidation, cargo pilfering, absenteeism and a general disinclination to work on the part of some dockers. Shipping com pany officials were loath to talk about specific incidents, fearing that the position might worsen as a result.

It was reported that a watchman on board the Nauruan cargo ship Rosie D had been beaten up and the liquor cargo broached by un identified dockers. A shipping com

pany official was said to have con firmed reports that on Saturday night, April 8, some dockers were seen reeling around drunk from liquor they had allegedly taken from the Rosie D and another ship, the Newcastle Star.

Gangs working the Rosie D were stopped at 10 p.m., an hour earlier than they were due to finish, because according to a shipping man “they were doing more damage than work”.

Some shipping men say that since last year’s dock strike and subse quent pay rise for dockworkers, work output has fallen by 30 per cent.

They talk of slow turn-around times and cargo pilfering and complain that members of the Dockworkers’ and Seamen’s Union won’t attend inquiries held to investigate complaints.

It looks like being a tough year for Fiji’s new government . . . * * * While the unions and the bosses bickered and the politicians de claimed, postured, mud-raked (and in the case of all too few, said sensible things), the airlines offered some light relief on the matter of air fares for Fiji and other Island countries.

“Very special cheap prices for /ou" was the gambit, whenever one net an airline man. It was bemusing o watch the fares go down and in dividual companies jostle to get naximum mileage out of the situation.

First, one company boasted in a ull-page Fiji Times advertisement that t was the only airline which could >ffer Fiji people the $697.00 return are to London—“PLUS the most requent direct one plane service, MJJS your choice of VCIO or 747, M_US a choice of route —via the Orient, the USA or Tokyo/Moscow”.

Its competitors were quick to ollow. Four carriers pooled their ssources for a full-page ad. telling s that the “$697 fare to London re -irn is available from any airline ncluding us)”. The message behind le advertising copy was that all air nes operating in and out of Fiji had een instrumental in getting the new >w fares and it just wasn't cricket )r any one carrier to appear to claim xclusiveness.

Qantas stole the show however ith its news of slashed one-way ires between Nadi and London. We 3uld get there for $420 via the US id for $495 for flights via Australia id Asia, with no time restrictions!

A few days later two other airlines

announced that they could do it for $409, with an 18-hour stop in Los Angeles. The other carriers followed suit. Qantas then dropped its fare by $lO.

People were hoping it wouldn’t stop there. If airline one-upmanship means we can get there for less, then we’re all for it. If the charter boys hadn’t been nosing around the South Pacific, who knows when we'd have got it.

Let’s not forget that this is the month of the big, bouncing, fascinat ing, unique South Pacific Festival of Arts.

Suva will take a long time to re

cover from the excitement of hosting this first festival, although in April, the preparations have been over shadowed within Fiij by the general elections. The new government will barely have been announced before the festival gets under way.

Billed as one of the great cultural happenings of the century, it looks like having something for everyone.

It’s whispered that a big land de velopment company in Fiji is hoping to buy up all the artefacts for future use. That's if it can get in before the museums and people like me who’d like to have something to re member the festival by!