Veteran of the 1951 waterfront strike committed to the end

Bill Andersen

Veteran trade unionist Bill Andersen died in Auckland last night. He was 80.

Mr Andersen, a veteran of the 1951 waterfront strike, was president of the National Distribution Union and leader of the Socialist Party of Aotearoa.

He suffered a heart attack on Friday.

Ken Douglas, former Federation of Labour national secretary and former Combined Trade Unions president, last night paid tribute to Mr Andersen.

"He obviously spanned a considerable number of years in the union movement and had a big influence, particularly on developments in the Auckland region," Mr Douglas said.

"I'd just express my condolences to his family and acknowledge the contribution he's made to the drivers' union in particular and the Auckland union movement in general," he said.

Mr Andersen was a committed unionist whose public persona was grim and unyielding.

He believed in leading from the front and as late as May 2003, aged 79, he was arrested and charged with obstructing police at a picket of drivers on strike against a laundry that supplies linen to Auckland's public hospitals.

Mr Andersen said then he was not out to set a record for being arrested, but needed to challenge what he claimed was the illegal use of non-union drivers.

The charges were dismissed in Auckland District Court in July last year for want of prosecution evidence.

Mr Andersen was a former member of the deregistered waterfront union at the centre of the 1951 waterfront strike.

In an interview about the 151-day strike, he criticised the severity of the emergency regulations which the Government imposed at the time.

The regulations made it an offence to aid the strikers, and made it illegal to print or publish statements likely to encourage or abet a declared strike, and gave police powers to break up meetings, search houses without warrants and open people's mail.

Mr Andersen questioned why the regulations should have been imposed for so long given that the armed forces had succeeded in ensuring that enough goods were being moved from the waterfront to guarantee the necessities of life.

He also said the Government used the regulations to prevent comment on the regulations themselves.

"If you make a law and then say people can't even discuss it, that's heavy stuff," Mr Andersen said.

- NZPA, STAFF REPORTER