STRIKE SETS IN.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 276, 22 November 1927, Page 7

STRIKE SETS IN.

NO OVERTIME WORK.

All Australian States Involved

But Queensland.

OWNERS* COUNTER MEASURES. (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 9.30 a.m.) MELBOURNE, this day. Representatives of the shipowners are expected to reach here to-day from the other States to confer regarding the refusal of the watersiders to work overtime after 5 p.m. The meeting has been convened to consider what counter measures may be adopted in the present situation. • The overtime strike started from five o'clock last evening at all porta in Australia excentinpr Queensland. Mr. Seale, the secretary of the Waterside Workers' Federation, says , action will be taken against all vessels, both inter-State and overseas. Both sides will suffer severely. The waterside workers are no longer receiving their overtime pay, which \va3 4/3 an hour, against 2/11 for ordinary hours, and shipowners will suffer through the delay occasioned by the stoppage of overtime work, where the handling of important cargoes is involved.

The strike is likely to have a specially serious effect upon the loading and departure of the wool ships.

Irritation Tactics.

The Union Company's steamer Kakariki was declared "black" on arrival from Risdon because it contained a cargo of zinc loaded at the Electrolytic Zinc Company's works at Kisdon by the company's own labour.

For some years zinc has been loaded at the company's works by the company's employees, but recently the Tasmanian wharf labourers declared that the work belonged to them and threatened that if the cargo was loaded by other labour it would be declared "black."

This decision is regarded as part of the new policy of the Watersiders' Federation in adopting irritation tactics against the shipowners, as well as the overtime strike.

The federation also threatens to declare the Commonwealth liner- Fordsdale "black" if any attempt is made to transfer the zinc from the Kakariki to the vFordsdale. Owners', Complaint. A joint statement issued by the Commonwealth Steamship Owners' Association and the Oversea Shipping Representatives' Association says that the Watersiders' Federation has repeatedly refused to give the Arbitration Court satisfactory guarantees that the old award would be obeyed in the event of their 'plaint proceeding before the Court. The oversea shipowners had held conferences with the federation with a similar result.

The men are violating the award practically in every port in Australia, and it is quite impossible for shipowners to carry on business satisfactorily under the intolerable conditions at present existing.

Eeferring to the Kakariki the statement says that the zinc aboard her, was urgently required in London and was to been transhipped to the steamer Fordadale to-day.

It has been the practice for many years for the company's men to load the zinc at Bisdon, and although the watersiders have several times asked the Court to order that members of the federation are entitled to this work the Court, after full inquiries in every case, has declined to grant the application.

The watersiders have now resorted to direct action in defiance of the Court.

The State president of the Queensland Watersiders' Federation has announced that at the Melbourne Watersiders' Conference the Queensland representatives fought for exclusion from any future overtime strike and it was promised that they would only be called into such strike as a last resort.

The strike has already delayed a number of vessels, including the mail steamer Mooltan, which was unable to depart to schedule time.