U.S. SEAMEN’S STRIKE

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24981, 16 September 1946, Page 5

U.S. SEAMEN’S STRIKE

“May Be Nearing End” PROGRESS MAB® IN TALKS CN.Z- Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) NEW YORK, Sept 13. Leaders of the Congress of Industrial Organisations, National Maritime Union, and the shipowners adjourned last night without reaching a wage settlement, but a spokesman lor the owners said that some progress had been made. Maritime circles indicated that the vast shipping strike is nearing its end. The National Maritime Union members will not return to work, however, unless the firemen, oilers, cooks, and stewards’ union, which on a sympathy strike, also receive increases. When the National Maritime Union voted unanimously to strike, demanding wage parity with American Federation of Labour seamen, the president (Mr Joseph Curran) said: “We will go on strike until the shipowners agree in writing to wipe out all wage differences.”

The strike took a new turn when the American Federation of Labour seamen’s officials, in spite of the settlement of their dispute, ordered their members not to cross the picket lines of the Congress of Industrial Organisations seamen who went on strike earlier in the day. Earlier messages said that American seamen on the Pacific Coast were going back to their ships, but the ports were still idle because, after the granting of increased pay to the seamen, other maritime workers have struck for similar increases. The strike involves about 200,000 workers. The Pacific Coast seamen voted unanimously to end their strike, but Atlantic Coast unionists decided to continue the strike until they received written assurances that increases

would be granted. Pacific Coast shipowners have agreed to pay increases immediately. The Director of the Maritime Commissions Labour Relations Division (Mr J. Godfrey Butler) said the division would recommend the same wage increases for C. 1.0. maritime workers as had been approved for all. He assumed the commission would approve the recommendation. The Associated Press says the commission must authorise the increases, after which the shipowners must decide whether to agree to them. In New York the continuance of the truck strike .forced two of the city’s large food chains, with nearly 740 stores, to close down to-day. The city is getting close to economic paralysis as negotiations for a settlement bog down. Deliveries from 375 large retail stores were halted yesterday, when United Parcels Service drivers joined the strikers.