IDLE MILLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 21, 25 January 1934, Page 17

IDLE MILLS.

TRIAL OF STRENGTH.

WOOLLEN WORKERS' STRIKE. RESULT OF "REDD" ACTION ? (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, January 18. About a fortnight ago a strike broke out in the woollen mills owned by Amalgamated Textiles at Orange. The dispute was supposed to hinge on a question of wages and hours. A new award liad been made by the Federal Arbitration Court in accordance with the fall in the cost of living, and all States, including New South Wales, for the first time, were brought under it. Hours were reduced elsewhere to 44 per week —the, system already adopted here and wages were adjusted to a uniform rate. There was some discontent here over the reduction in wages, and the New South Wales employers offered some concessions, which were apparently interpreted as a sign of weakness. The State unions apparently want employers here to ignore the award altogether, and, failing to secure this object, they have resolved on a trial of strength. The closing of the Orange mill, when nearly 300 employees went out, was followed within the week by a similar strike at the Goulburn mills, owned by the same company, where about 300 were employed. At these towns there was a certain amount of intimidation and attempted violence. The police were assaulted, and men and girls who did not wish to go out had to fight their'-way into the mills. Then the company closed down the mills, and the situation began to develop in a very ominous way. Extended to Sydney. For some time past the secretary of the Textile Workers' Union, who is located at the Trades Hall, has been taking an active part in the campaign, evidently encouraging the strikers to hold out, and apparently doing his best to extend the strike. As a natural consequence the strike has extended to Sydney. It began in two mills, and spread rapidly to four more, the employees all taking "time off" to attend an important meeting, and omitting to return. Attempts were made to effect some sort of compromise, and a compulsory conference of employers and workers, summoned by the deputyIndustrial Registrar, was held to consider the whole situation. But Orange and Goulburn refused to accept the proposals of the employers, and therefore the local strikes—which are all "sympathy" strikes —will go on. Meantime the agitation has extended to the weavers, who, of course, hold the key position in the trade, and if these 1500 workers are induced to cast in their lots with the malcontents the whole of the textile industry of the State, involving 12,000 workers, will be at a standstill. Deadlock Aimed At. Of course the object of the strike leaders is to bring about a deadlock here, and to extend the strike to Victoria, and in fact to the whole Commonwealth. For there is plenty of evidence to show that the movement has been carefully organised and that the various steps have been taken by preconcerted action. It has been pointed out by the "Sydney Morning Herald" as something more than a coincidence that only last month the Militant Minority Movement—the Australian section of the Moscow International—held a conference in Sydney to discuss the industrial situation, and that at this meeting speakers expressed their apprehension at "the evident signs of economic recovery" in Australia, and their fear that "Australian workers were again becoming prosperous and contented." The conference therefore resolved that at all costs the wage-earners must be drawn into "active strike work," and this no doubt is one of the fruits of its efforts "to dislocate reviving industry." Workers Made Tools. There is evidence which indicates clearly that a large number of the workers are reluctant to "come out," and that many of them suspect that they are being used as tools by revolutionary agitators. But for the moment the strike is a very formidable matter. Several of the mills in Sydney and suburbs are closed and the works are picketed —though so far there has been no threat of violence. This week the strikers issued from the Trades Hall an ultimatum to employees in all mills that a general strike in the industry has been declared and that they are expected to leave work at once.

The employers on their side are resolved not even to negotiate with the unions till the strikers relurn to work. In the meantime they are considering seriously whether it would not pay them better to sell their wool at present high values rather than attempt to turn it into textile. So the whole industry is, for the moment, "on a dead centre," and this is the way in which the Trades Hall magnates and their Communist allies have greeted "the return of prosperity" in New South Wales.