GANGPLANK BREAKS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 266, 23 August 1949, Page 3

GANGPLANK BREAKS

SURPRISE FOR CHINESE STRIKERS (Rec. 10.45 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. Seventeen Chinese engaged in a sit-down strike on a ship’s gangplank at Newcastle fell in a heap to the wharf when the plank they had chosen for their demonstration proved unequal to the strain. They took with them a constable who was trying to board the ship Haven at the time.

Two Chinese were taken to hospital. When an attempt was made to shift the Haven from Dolphins to the coalloading berth, the Chinese crew members sat on a gangplang and the lines which held the ship to the wharf. When the police arrived, the Chinese used threatening language in their own tongue. The ship is still at Dolphins. . Reporters who sought information on the strike were greeted with excited gesticulations and cries of “More pay! More pay”! At a meeting in Sydney, the Chinese Seamen’s Union decided that Chinese members of the Haven’s crew would not - take the ship to sea until the owners replied to their demands for increased overseas allowance and a positive assurance that their families in Shanghai will receive the Australian basic wage as allotment. The captain was asked to cable these demands to the owners in Hong Kong. The Haven, which has been tied up in Newcastle- since the beginning of the coal strike, is known locally as the “felow boat to China.”