REFUSAL TO LOAD.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 194, 18 May 1938, Page 5

REFUSAL TO LOAD.

SCRAP IRON FOR JAPAN. WARNING BY GOVERNMENT, t (United Press Association—Copyright.) SYDNEY, May 17. Shipping circles are perturbed about the probable outcome of the clash between the Federal Government and the Sydney waterside workers over the workers’ refusal to load tin clippings and scrap iron for Japan. All the wharves here will be idle on May 25 for a stop-work meeting. The watersiders will then decide their attitude after the cTovernment’s ultimatum which, if it is carried out, will mean that every wharf worker in Sydney will require to take out a licence before he can obtain employment.

Sydney unionists have so far escaped the licensing obligation, but watersiders in Melbourne and Adelaide have been working under it since the last ■shipping hold-up. More than 3000 tons of scrap metal are lying on Adelaide wharves because of the refusal of the watersiders to load for Japan. The direction of the dispute was indicated last Wednesday, when it was reported that the Federal Government took a serious view of the repeated refusal of the men to load tin clippings and scrap iron for Japan. The Government demanded some form of undertalcing that this policy would be discontinued, failing which the penal clauses of the Transport Workers Act would be put into effect.