UNION BID TO END STRIKE

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27698, 30 June 1955, Page 13

UNION BID TO END STRIKE

Draft Statement For T.U.C. (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11.30 p.m.) • LONDON, June 29. The industrial peace team of the Trades Union Council was dramatically called together last night to plan a new move to end Britain’s crippling dock strike, now in its sixth week, the “Daily Mail’’ said today. They prepared a draft statement which will go to the T.U.C. General Council today, together with a report of the three-man disputes panel which has been inquiring into the dockland dispute. Officials of the T.U.C. are hoping that a “really forthright go-back-to-work declaration may see the beginning of the end of the strike,” the “Daily Maily” said. It said that last night Mr Newman, acting secretary of the striking Amalgamated Stevedores’ and Dockers’ Union, said: “The relationship between officers of both unions is now on a eordial plane.”

Axie Qupuie aruse over the Stevedores’ Union’s demand for nation-wide recognition as a negotiating authority to bring it into line witn the big Transport and General Workers’ Union. The Transport Union’s 33.000 dock worker members have not joined the strike. Differences between the two unions have been complicated by the T.G.W.U. accusation that the smaller Stevedores’ Union ••poached” 10.000 of its members. ' The dock strike is threatening to deprive the Henley Royal Regatta, which begins tomorrow, of its star performers—a crew of crack Russian oarsmen. Because their own special racing boats are strike-bound on board the Russian ship Strelna in the London docks, they may now withdraw from the regatta, one of the world’s most famous rowing events. A Russian spokesman said: “English I craft do not suit our style and wouid i prove a handicap.’’ j They are now awaiting instructions i from Moscow to see if they should ■ compete in the borrowed boats they have been practising in for the last week. * Earlier. a number of striking dock- | ers, who are also oarsmen, had offered :in the cause of sport to unload the ' boats, but they were refused permis- ' sion to go ahead at a dpek-gate meet- ; ing this morning. Seamen Found Guilty Forty-nine of the crew of the giant Cunarder Queen Mary were found guilty at Southampton of disobeying an order which prevented the liner sailing for New York on June 16.

The men were taking part in an unofficial dock strike which held up several trans-Atlantic liners in Liverpool and Southampton. The strike petered out on Saturday. They were given a conditional discharge and ordered to pay £3 costs each. The Magistrates,- explaining the conditional discharge, told the men that if any of them committed a further offence bringing them into Court in the next 12 months, they could be dealt with for this offence as well. Counsel for the men told the Court of a mysterious stranger who came aboard the Queen Mary and “overpersuaded” her deck crew to refuse to sail. He said: “Every one of them has told me there was a stranger on board —someone who was agitating. That "ffitator over-persuaded these men.”

worth of new building -works in New South Wales. Work on 20.000 new homes and many major factory and office buildings, including four in the citv. has been affected. Building authorities fear congtn etion will halt altogether if the strike continues.