Pacific Transport

Fiji's Dockworkers Threaten To

Boycott Container Traffic

From Robert Keith-Reid

in Suva

Containers are the big hope in Fiji as a means of holding down freight rate and stevedoring costs.

That hope was dealt a blow in late March when the Fiji Waterside Workers' and Seamens’ Union an nounced that its members would, henceforth, refuse to touch any ship arriving at Fiji ports carrying more than 10 per cent of Fiji-consigned cargo in containers.

The reason, said the union’s leader, Taniela Veitata, was quite simple: a pure container ship needed one-tenth of the dock force to dis charge it that an ordinary cargo ship needed.

That meant the threat of mass re dundancy among Fiji dockers that his union would not countenance, he said.

The union applied the ban after hearing on the grapevine that several companies were planning to start pure container services to Fiji—one from Australia, one from North America and one from New Zealand.

Stevedoring companies in Suva confirmed plans for an Australia-Fiji service but said they knew nothing of propositions for services from anywhere else.

They were annoyed over the leak about the Australian service to the union, having apparently been hoping to spring it as an accomplished fact that the dockers would not be able to contest.

According to Taniela Veitata, the service from Australia will start in May with a pure container ship called Hanseat.

After the union’s ban, shipping company officials connected with plans for the Australian service were not willing to say whether it would now go ahead.

One described the dockers’ attitude as a “tragedy” although he admitted that container ships would put a lot of them out of work.

As far as the employers are con cerned, Suva has far more dockers than the amount of cargo moving

through the port warrants. But the union has insisted on keeping the present force of about 600 registered dockers at this level.

Employers know that any attempt to cut this number would mean a disastrous dock strike which the dockers—all Fijians with access to unlimited free food and accommoda tion, as a strike in 1972 showed— would win.

The ban does not affect the Union Steam Ship Company Ltd’s container ship, Union South Pacific which has been running between Auckland,

Suva, Nukualofa and Apia for the last two years.

She carries about 110 international size containers and although USS says she has been found not to be quite suited to the route, she has still been doing very well.

Union South Pacific was exempted from the ban partly because the USS Co was careful to introduce her in close consultation with the dockers.

And also at the time she began the service the dockworkers’ union was deregistered and could not effectively

oppose her arrival on the regional shipping scene.

After the revelation of the dockers’ ban, Mr Harry Kiss, chairman of the shipping committee of the Fiji Employers’ Consultative Association, said it would be discussing it.

Just what stand the shipping com panies will take against the union is not yet clear—even to them.

But it is expected that they will try to talk the union into a deal in volving compensation payments of some kind.

And they might also be hoping for miracles from the dynamic Mr Loh Heng Kee, former boss of the Port of Singapore and now, as a

kind of retirement hobby, first direc tor of the new Ports Authority of Fiji.

Mr Loh is very much a container advocate and one of his first moves since his arrival at the end of last year was to open container depots in suburban areas of Suva so that con tainers can be packed and unpacked there instead of in the congested wharf area itself.

At present the container ban does not mean much because apart from the lucky Union South Pacific, none of the conventional cargo-ships work ing Fiji carries over 10 per cent of Fiji cargo in the 20-ton capacity boxes that the dockers have black listed.

But if the shipping companies and Mr Loh fail to change the dockers’ attitudes, the task before the Ports Authority in bringing greater efficiency and order to the ports of Fiji is going to be made a lot more difficult.

Officials of the union, in a full page advertisement in the Fiji Times, argued that from an economic point of view, it was cheaper to handle conventional cargo than container cargo. As Fiji imported most of its requirements from Australia, it chose Sydney to compare the different costs in handling the two types of cargo.

The stevedoring cost involved in load ing a ton of conventional cargo was $2O, and of container cargo $25.50.

The union also claimed there had never been a recorded reduction in freight rates for any container service between Fiij and any country which gave a container service. In fact, containerisation was a major factor in increased freight rates throughout the world, it argued.

The union also said they considered container vessels were best suited only in a country where the demand for labour was high. In Fiji, there was not enough work for the perma nent dockers, who averaged about 22 hours a week.

Fiji's School For

Waterfront Workers

Suva saw the opening in March of the first course in a school for waterfront workers. Attending the course were 10 forklift drivers who were told by the Fiji Port Authority’s director-general, Mr Loh Heng Kee, that through training the workers would be able to play more meaning ful roles in the progress and advance ment of the shipping industry of Fiji.

With the present emphasis on new modes and concepts of transport and cargo handling, such as the con tainer, Mr Loh said, the trial and error method of the ports must give way to more systematic and sophis ticated forms of training.

Qantas Has A Big

Role In Fiji Tourism

The Qantas role in the Fiji tourist industry is staggering. The airline conservatively estimates that under new schedules it will fly more than 60,000 visitors a year to Fiji—so,ooo from Australia, 10,000 from the US, and 2,000 from Canada. Between Australia and Fiji 67,000 seats a year will be available, although many of these will be taken up by passen gers passing through Nadi.

The figure is bound to grow as Qantas is aiming to become a

“jumbo-only” airline, by phasing out the Boeing 707 s in favour of the 7475. But as equipped at present, it is now flying 26 times a week into Fiji (before March 31 there were 20 flights a week into the country).

There is a good “mix” in the ser vices, with flights by day and night.

Flights into Australia end at Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane. On north bound flights from Australia to the US, some go east from Nadi, and arrive in Canada or the US, via Fahiti.

The airline to use a rather hack leyed phrase, “has confidence in the future of Fiji”. It is confident of the : uture of tourism, saying it will climb igain in the foreseeable future. It is laving another look at the possibility )f introducing inclusive tour charters nto Fiji.

It is obviously expecting more first :lass passengers to pass through To help cater for them and >rovide appropriate amenities, it has ipened a Captain’s Club in the new Jrport terminal. It is a two-room uxury lounge into which it has put 130,000 in furnishings alone.

Fhirsty Crew On

.Emonade Water

The crew of a freighter the Cap ain Paddon had a thirsty voyage rom Noumea to Vila. She had ex ected to take drinking water on card at Noumea for her journey d Sydney but cyclone Alison made erthing impossible and she had to ontinue on to Vila desperately short f water.

But the drought was ended at Vila -with water from a lemonade fac iry! There was only 10 tons avail ble at Vila wharf so Vate Beverages ame to the rescue and pumped the quivalent of 21,000 bottles of :monade water—without the lemon de—into the Captain Paddon’s inks.

The lemonade factory can produce 0 tons of purified water a day.

Tir Pacific Men

N Lightning Strike

Four hundred employees of Air acific, Fiji, staged a lightning strike arly in April, claiming that the com any had asked the president of the dr Pacific Employees’ Association, lr Gyanendra Singh, to resign.

Flights were partly disrupted. Air ne executives at Nausori operated refuelling tractor and an aircraft round tug. Mr Singh said the airline 'rote to him asking him to resign be ause he refused a posting as a sales aining and administrative officer, fe claimed the offer amounted to a emotion.