The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 3

Sydney Morning Herald Thursday, March 15, 1990 3 Trackers9 war threatens supplies HOW OUR HIGHWAYS WERE BLOCKS The executive director of the Queensland Road Transport Association, Mr Trevor Small, said writs for damages would probably be lodged against individual drivers, because the federation had no official status. A spokesman for the Queensland Minister for Transport, Mr Hamill, said the Government did not plan to invoke emergency services legislation as NSW did recently to end a similar protest. But police would act against truck drivers who broke the law by causing a safety problem on roads or interfering with people The teamsters have demanded the Federal Government act on a log of claims that includes increased freight rates, lower fuel taxes and registration costs, and national uniformity of road rules. The Queensland teamsters have also called for a reduction in interest rates and an end to police and Government "harassment" of drivers. They would also like to see increased "industry status" with the new name of "transport operator" rather than truck driver.

An employer group, the National Transport Federation, has threatened legal action against the teamsters if they disrupt freight movements. Mr Euen alleged he and his wife, Trish, were assaulted by repossession agents, who failed to take the truck when 30 other drivers quickly surrounded it with their own rigs at a truck stop near Brisbane. Mr Euen insisted rebel action would go ahead indefinitely, crippling road freight movements between the two States within hours. The Teamsters Federation claims to have more than 3,000 members throughout the country. However it is not a recognised union, and the TWU has told its drivers they have no obligation to stop at the pickets.

At all nine major border crossings, any other truck drivers would be told to stop and return to their depots. "They won't be getting through," he said. "If it comes down to it, we'll have no alternative but to blockade." Mr Weir believes thousands of drivers will man the border pickets, and also picket rail heads and the depots of large freight companies. The action was placed under a cloud yesterday when an insurance company tried to repossess a prime mover and trailer owned by the Queensland president of the teamsters, Mr Des Euen. By PAUL CHAMBERUN A confrontation on NSW-Queensland border crossings was expected last night as the Transport Workers Union warned that its truck drivers were likely to ignore picket lines set up by the rebel Teamsters Federation.

In retaliation, the teamsters threatened to block the road with parked trucks. The Queensland chairman of the teamsters, Mr Bob Weir, said that only cars and trucks carrying exempted goods such as bread, milk and medical supplies would be allowed through the pickets. Dec 22 Kempsey tas accident. 90 krrh speed limit introduced Feb 11 TWU bans rod freight movements in and out of NSW Feb 13 Dispute escalates to include air-raif freight Feb 15 TWU lift bans but rebels set up their own pickets Feb 19 TWU group pickets Port Botany Feb 21-23 Pickets end March 14 Teamsters picket NSW-Qtd border expected union members would drive straight past pickets into NSW. The TWU has dissociated itself from the rebel action, and a spokesman said yesterday he Tz metres Immersed tube Land tunnel Land tunnel Burton St High St iFitzroy St Jeffrey St Wharf Opera House Sea level Warringah Expressway Stopwork may break Coles dispute By PAUL CHAMBERUN and ELIZABETH JURMAN Storemen and packers in the retail industry will stop work today for 24 hours to consider a proposal which could resolve a long-running dispute at a Coles-Myer warehouse.

The customer relations manager for Coles, Mr Ross Corrigan, said yesterday 52 stores north of the Harbour Bridge had been affected by the dispute. The Coles store at Chatswood has not had a delivery for 13 days and the shelves are empty of toilet tissues, sugar, laundry detergent, cereal and other dry groceries. The stopwork today is to discviss award restructuring but about 5jOO members of the National Unioj of Workers (previously the Federated. Storemen and Packers) will also consider whether to stage a St? tewide strike in support of 200 cof leagues sacked from the Coles warehouse at Somersby, near Gosford. The secretary of the v.nion, Mr Frank Belan, and represe ntatives of Retail Distribution Management (RDM) yesterday thrafjhed out a possible compromise, which will be put to members in an attempt to stave off the strike.

The dispute flared on February 27 when the union objected to the sacking of three casuals and manning cuts in the refrigeration and replenisher sections of the warehouse. They called on warehouse operator RDM to revert to the status quo while negotiations were carried out. The company refused, and 200 storemen walked out in protest. On March 2, after Deputy President Mcnahon of the Industrial Commission had twice ordered them back to work, RDM sacked all the storemen. Picket lines were immediately placed at the warehouse gates.

Common law damages claims in the Supreme Court against the union are understood to have been waived by RDM and Coles-Myer as part of the compromise. At the Coles store in Chatswood, only Henry Ford could win the soft drink advertising account you can have any soft drink, so long as it is Coke. Stores south of the Harbour Bridge are supplied from Gouiburn and are not affected by the dispute. 4 metres Dug-out To be Completed Dug-out Completed of rock section dug sections section sections f- Downtime in tunnel, but fish are fin to fin By PETER QU1DDINGTON Twenty metres below Sydney Harbour, deep inside the city's first underwater freeway, there is quiet but for the rambling of ferries and ships overhead. Work on the $2 billion runnel has almost come to a standstill, with half of the immersed tube sections firmly in place.

The scheduled pause is to allow for the second batch of four runnel units to be prefabricated at Port Kembla. These will be towed to the site in October. The sinking of the tube sections will then resume in earnest, to the delight of some workers at the site, who describe the process as the "world's most expensive fish As the tubes are lowered into place and the outer seals are locked together, there is a metre-wide space left between the bulkheads, which remains filled with water, and bottled up inside have been found all kinds of marine life, from leatherjacket to the occasional octopus. For the moment, the project activities are on the northern and southern approaches. Early next month a major stage of construction will be completed when the 750-metre tunnel from the Harbour foreshore will break through on to the Warringah Expressway.

On the southern shore, one of the most complex engineering tasks for the project has begun as construction crews burrow 15 metres beneath the western forecourt of the Sydney Opera House. Piers supporting the concrete slab are being removed because they are in the path of the future roadway. They will be replaced by massive concrete beams. If the job does not go exactly to plan here it will mean that cracks will soon start to appear in the surface of the walkway to the Sydney Opera House. A harbour tunnel spokesman, Mr Liam Bathgate, said, however, that the cost of any damage to the Opera House would have to be met by the project.

Mr Bathgate said the tunnel was still running to schedule for completion in August 1992. That's progress On the Kirribilli side of the tunnel, civil works supervisor Anton Pirnat sees the project taking shape. Picture by BRUCE MILLER Seven swings into the season with two wins HOW THE STATIONS RATED HOW DO YOU GET jS? MONEY MARKET RATES jBfr AS HIGH AS THIS, JW AT CALL? jjF 6pm to midnight 2 7 9 10 SBS LAST WEEK 13.4 27.9 2g.S 26.8 2.0 FtRST SURVEY 12.2 31.7 30.4 23.7 2.0 EVEfjSKG NEWS 15 19 29 13 4 NUMSER OHZ MOV3E WHITE MISCHIEF, 9, 22 points WHAT'S HOT major gains of the week A COUNTRY PRACTICE, 7, 29 points WED NIGHT RUGBY LEAGUE, 10, 25 points STREET, 10, 20 points WHAT'S NOT major loss of the week TEN NEWS, 10, peak 13 points, low 10 HERE IN PERSON LAST WEEK'S SUCCESSES 1990 LOGIE AWARDS, 10, 31 points 60 MINUTES, 9, 26 points HEY 7, 23 points By ROBIN OLIVER Strong on entertainment programs and slowly but surely improving its 6 pm news audience, Channel 7 has won the television season's first four-week ratings survey. This is Seven's first such win in five years, but while champagne corks were popping as the results came through yesterday morning and some senior executives at Epping were spotted wearing party hats and swathed in streamers, the even bigger cause for rejoicing was that Seven had also won a survey in Melbourne, for only the second time since 1980. In Sydney, Seven actually lost the week to Channel 9 the second week in a row but early season success with mini-series, first-run movies and the outstanding performance of the local sitcom, Hey Dad! had virtually assured success.

The Federal election turned' out to be the big yawn of the week, with Liberal and Labor policy speeches failing to draw a crowd, even though they were given prime-time slots on the commercial networks. Andrew Peacock and the Liberals went first, with a Monday night audience that sank from a peak 29 points (A Country Practice) to 11, 10 and 9 points when Mr Peacock appeared. Bob Hawke and Labor followed on Thursday night and fared even worse. A peak 25 commercial rating (for 'Alio 'Alio) dropped to nine points across the board. Viewers LAST WEEK'S DISASTERS FAMILY AND FRIENDS, 9.

peak 5 points, low 4 SYDNEY WITH GIBSON. 10. peak 11 pts, low 7 points on each of two nights, sinking to four. Top program for the ABC was The 7.30 Report (19 points), with Question of Survival on 18 and the 7 pm news (peak 15, low 13) showing a marked improvement Graham Kennedy, who last switched instead to the ABC, which was showing the police drama The Bill, giving the program a best-ever 14. It was an exceptionally good week for Channel 10, which had the top program with the 1990 Logie Awards (31 points) and scored well with mid-week League on 25.

The Comedy Hour was still reasonably strong on 19, LA Law reached 18 and the drama serial Street climbed to 20 points peak, its best so far. The big loser so far and the first of the new season programs under serious threat is the Nine serial Family and Friends, which could do no better than five monin swore oy tne Nine gods that he wouldn't be back on TV until 1991, is coming back to Channel 9 almost immediately. The Nine Network announced last night that it had persuaded Kennedy to end a four-month break and return to the box to host a new early evening comedy show, Graham Kennedy's Funniest Home Video Show. Shri Mataji calculated daily effective annual jf Ea-sa rm yield neiu south ujrues i 1 1 iT fe' How? Together with a National Australia Bank Cash Management Account. A minimum balance of $5,000 is all you need to get interest calculated daily and paid monthly together with the convenience of your money at calL (Proceeds of cheques deposited will be available when cleared.) Account Balance Effective Annual Yield $20,000 plus 16.25 p.a.

S5.0C0 to $19,999 13.97 p.a. These yields are achieved for 7 days from 12390. Yielda are calculated on the basis that interest rates remain constant for 12 months and interest is automatically reinvested in the account for 12 months. For full details, get together with us now. Inner Peace and Through Sahaja Yoga Meditation "If there is no peace within the human mind, what is the use of talking of peace?" Shri Mataji SYDNEY HILTON HOTEL Grand Ballroom, 490 George Street, Sydney FRIDAY, l(m MARCH SATURDAY, 17th MARCH ADMISSION FREE Programmes include traditional Indian music by the Nagpur Musicians.

Free follow-up workshops will be held during March and April. SAHAJA YOGA ph. (02) 416 2573 (02) 328 6624 Important meeting of NSW Visiting Medical Officers to discuss CONTRACT AND MACKEN NEGOTIATIONS SUNDAY MARCH 18, 1990 10am Centenary Lecture Theatre Royal North Shore Hospital, St Leonards (enter via Reserve Rd) "C7 JWT390P00UI23 1.