COOKS' REQUEST.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 120, 23 May 1928, Page 7

COOKS' REQUEST.

CONFER WITH OWNERS

Desire To Settle Marine Strike. BOTH PARTIES AGREED. (Received 10 a.m.) MELBOURNE, this day. The Shipowners' Association has received a telegram from Mr. J. Tudehope, general secretary of the Marine Cooks' Union, in Sydney, requesting a conference to disctiss terms for the settlement of the cooks' dispute, and declaring that the Trades Union Council has no authority to act on the cooks' behalf. The shipowners' secretary, Mr. Elford, has replied: "We will meet your representatives with or without representatives of other bodies to discuss a settlement. "We have already informed you on two occasions of the terms on which we are ready to engage your members. These take nothing away from you to which you were previously entitled, but after the ships of all the members of my organisation are fully manned, if there is any difficulty in regard to details, we are prepared to give consideration to any suggestion you may make." The meeting of the combined committee of the maritime unions and the Trades Union Council passed a resolution to resist to the utmost any attempt by the employers to engage non-union labour for ships, and also to resist the abolition of the roster system, which for years has been a condition of employment as well as a clause of the Cooks' Union rules. Before the owners got their way in this matter the Arbitration Court should be consulted.

An earlier message from Sydney stated that Mr. Tudehope stronglydefended the action of the cooks yesterday in refusing mediation by the Australian and New Zealand Council of Trades Unions.

Mr. Tudehope said his union did not recognise the authority of the Trades Union Council to intervene in the matter without the consent of the organisation directly concerned. His union intended to notify the owners that the Trades Union Council was acting without the authority of the cooks and that the latter were now going to attempt to arrange a conference to discuss the question of the abolition of the roster system and other terms. SHIP TO LAY UP. OWNERS' DECISION. (Received 12 noon.) SYDNEY, this day. Another inter-State passenger vessel, the Diinboola, is to be laid up by the shipowners as a result of the cooks' strike. The crew will be given 24 hours' notice on arrival at West Australia.