EFFECT OF STRIKE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 66, Issue 47, 5 December 1945, Page 4

EFFECT OF STRIKE

THOUSANDS IDLE . ALL SERVICES RESTRICTED (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright.) (Rec. 1.30 p.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. Many thousands more workers will be thrown out of employment as a result of restrictions imposed on the use of gas and electricity. The restrictions, which will operate from midnight to-night, will affect homes, warehouses, shops, factories, theatres, public halls and most, business offices. The manufacture of a wide range of non-essential goods will be prohibited, and all but essential industry will be brought to a standstill. Housewives will suffer similar burdens to those resulting from the recent Btmnerong strike. The use of gas and electricity for cooking |may be jmade only between prescribed hours. All rail and tram services will be cut as from to-morrow. Tram services will be reduced by 20 per cent. Hundreds of motor trucks will bring emergency food supplies to Sydney if the coal strike continues, as the road transport pool established during the war has agreed with the State Government to organise a road service for this purpose. It is estimated that power rationing will throw more than 300,000 New South Wales workers out of jobs. Between 80,000 and 90,000 workers in the metal trades alone will lose their jobs immediately, and nearly 250,000 more will be unemployed within a week.

The president of the Miners’ Federation, Mr H. Wells, said that the central executive had decided not to extend the miners’ strike to other States yet in view of the conference to be held in Canberra this afternoon. No decision would he made until the Canberra talks had concluded. Settlement Unlikely Union leaders involved in the steel, coal and shipping strikes believe that a settlement formula will emerge from the conference to-day with the Prime .Minister, Mr J. B. Chifley, but opinion in well-informed Federal quarters is that there is no possibility of Mr Chifley giving way on any vital issue. In Canberra the belief is that undue importance has been attached in Sydney to the fact that Mr Chifley agreed to receive a delegation organised by the Australasian Council of Trade Unions. Since taking the Prime Ministership, Mr Chifley has had his door almost continually open to representatives of major sections of the community who claimed that they had a case to state on a. particular question with which the Government was concerned. 1 . , Members of these deputations have gone away without any satisfaction except that of a courteous hearing. In the present dispute itself, Mr Chifley has already shown that reception of the delegation does not mean that\lie is willing to concur with any strike settlement proposals that the deputation might make.