ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the labour process, workplace culture and the waterside workers' and employers' respective organisations and goals. The three ports of Auckland, Wellington and Lyttelton handled nearly 70 per cent of New Zealand's total seaborne trade by 1950. There were two major developments in labour market organisation in 1937 and 1940; the first was materially assisted by the election of the first Labour government at the end of 1935, and the second was a response to the outbreak of World War II. The collective memories of the waterside workers strongly emphasise the low wages, insecure employment and unsafe working conditions during the 1920s and 1930s that created permanent antagonism and covert resistance. The continuous nature of work on the waterfront was partly a consequence of the larger cargo vessels being built after World War II.
