WATERFRONT STRIKE

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24870, 9 May 1946, Page 5

WATERFRONT STRIKE

Three Australian Ports

MORE SHIPPING IDLE (M.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) SYDNEY, May 8. Unless a settlement is reached in the double dumped wool bale dispute, a general shipping hold-up in every wool port in Australia is threatened. Already the dispute has spread from Sydney to Melbourne ana Brisbane, and 2350 men are involved. The centre of the disturbance ia Sydney, where 22 ships and 1800 men are idle. The men again declined calls for labour this morning. Only two of the Sydney ships were loading wool. Others were drawn into it when 1600 men refused work unless 200 men dismissed on Monday for refusing to handle double dumped bales were allowed to work on other

I®he Federal secretary of the Waterside Workers’ Federation has repeated the federation’s demand that a date should be named for the cessation of double dumping. “Once that date is given we shall be happy to get back to work,” he said. “A complete tie up can be avoided if the port committee rerosters for other work those men who have gone out in sympathy. This would confine the dispute to the wool issue.”

Although the *‘Sydney Morning Herald” deplores the watersiders’ attitude in holding up shipping, it comments in a leading article: ‘‘But it is time they were given some definite ruling on future policy, for although the Stevedoring Commission has decreed that the handling of bales must continue, it has not indicated how long the practice is likely to last.”