QUEENSLAND STRIKE DEMONSTRATION

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25444, 16 March 1948, Page 5

QUEENSLAND STRIKE DEMONSTRATION

Police Use Batons To Stop March In Brisbane (NZ. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9 p.m.) BRISBANE, March 15. A inarch which was broken up by the Brisbane police with batons is reported to have been a well planned attempt to circumvent the anti-picketing law recently passed by the Queensland Government. It was led by Mr Michael Healy, secretary of the Trades and Labour Council, and Mr G. C. Englart, State secretary of the Waterside Workers’ Federation, both of whose names had been taken previously by the police because of demonstrations outside the Shell Company oil depots. To-day a smaller force of police than on previous days waited outside the depots, but reinforcements were soon rushed up. A hundred pickets, led Healy and Mr Englart, massed nearby and marched towards a depot bearing Communistic slogans. On being warned by the police, Mr Healy said that the men were not picketing but were holding a political demonstration. After passing the depot, the men turned and moved towards the city, being joined pn the way by others who emerged from side streets until they were 400 strong. Police reinforcements met the strikers on a main shopping corner at Fortitude Valley, where a determined attempt was made to Seize all the banners and placards. A running battle ensued as the strikers broke through the police cordon and the police raced down Wickham street to intercept them. One heavily built striker stood on a placard as the police tried to pick it up. Others closed with the police and still others, when approached, tossed the placards they were carrying to men behind.

Thirteen men, including a barrister, union secretaries, watersiders, and railwaymen, appeared in the Police Court to-day charged with breaches of the new anti-picketin g laws. The cases were adjourned. Among those charged was a Communist barrister, Max Julius, who appeared for some of the defendants, and was himself represented by Mr F. Paterson, a Communist member of the State Parliament. Meanwhile, a 24-hour steppage, which the Queensland railway disputes committee had hopbd would take place throughout Australia next Wednesday, as a protest against the anti-picketing legislation of the Hanlon Government, has been abandoned even in Queensland. The combined executives of the Queensland Trades and Labour Council and the central disputes committee decided this to-day, because the employers had applied for permission to stand down workers The State Industrial Court will deal to-morrow with applications by Queensland employers organisations for permission to stand down workers made idle by the strike. The Queensland strike leaders flew to Melbourne yesterday in a last-min-ute effort to induce the Australasian Council of Trade Unions to bring about the proposed 24-hour stoppage. The Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Enginemen has decided to ask the Federal Arbitration Court to mtenrene in the strike after the refusal by the State Government to accede to the union’s demand for fulltime employment if the men return to work immediately. Until the Federal Court gives its decision the men have been instructed to remain on strike, but the Queensland Railway Commissioner is confident that hundreds of locomotive men will defy their union. Last Friday 216 trains ran in Queensland and to-day a further increase is expected. Airline officials say to-day that the rapidly decreasing demand for air 0! now being done on credit The strike has cost millions of pounds in public and private revenue, and it is badly delaying inter-state and overseas trade. In six weeks the strikers and men stood down because of the stoppage have lost £BOO.OOO in wages. Retail b UBIn «s m Queensland is at Its lowest ebb for Years. The State housing programme Is at a standstill, the railways have lost £1,500.000 in revenue, and cargoes worth £2,500,000 are tied up in, idle ships. This season's sugar crop is in jeopardy, the shipment of wool worth £3,000,000 is held up. and mere has been no food shipment to Britain for a fortnight.