MALAYAN TRADE UNIONS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25555, 24 July 1948, Page 7

MALAYAN TRADE UNIONS

SUPPRESSION REPORTS DENIED AUSTRALIAN ARMS BAN OPPOSED (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) SINGAPORE, July 23. A prominent trade union leader, Mr V. Menon, an Indian, said to-day that the Australian unionists who thought trade unionism was being suppressed in Malaya were wrong, and if they stopped arms shipments, it would be detrimental to real trade union aspirations. Workers in some unions now realised that they had been playing into the hands of Communist leaders who had since disappeared. Mr Menon said he was now taking an active part in reorganising the Malay Colliery Workers’ Union at Batu Arang, where the colliery was attacked by terrorists soon after the Chinese union leaders had disappeared. “The" Malayan Government is not misusing its emergency powers to interfere with the normal functions of the Malayan trade unions,” said

Mr J. A. Brazier, a trade union adviser in Malaya. “I would be the first one to kick if anyone tried to pull a fast one in this country. That is why the British Trade Union Congress sent me out here.” Commenting on the proposal of the Australian Seamen’s Union to ban the export of arms, Mr Brazier said it would rot help the Malayan unions, only the people who were trying to destroy them.

“If we are unable to smash this Communist-led movement, there will not be any democratic trade unions in this country,” he said. “J wonder what the secretary of the Australian Seamen’s Union (Mr E. V. Elliott) would do if his union were subjected to intimidation like that practised in Malaya, where a treasurer is shot or stabbed if he refuses to hand over .his money to the Communists? Australian trade union ignorance of what is going on ( in Malaya is appalling.”