The Press WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 1956. Australian Waterfront Strike

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27875, 25 January 1956, Page 12

The Press WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 1956. Australian Waterfront Strike

The Australian waterfront strike is more than a battle between watersiders and shipping companies. It reopens arguments on automatic wage increases, on the Federal Arbitration Court’s decision in 1954 granting margins for skill, and on the conflict between Federal and State wage-fixing systems. More, it raises doubts about the efficiency of the arbitration principle adapted 60 years ago from the New Zealand experiment. The watersiders’ quarrel with their employers really began with the rejection by the Federal Arbitration Court last year of the watersiders’ application for a special margin for skill. Holding that the union had not made a case for higher wages on this ground, the Court specifically invited the watersiders to make a fresh application on other grounds, including the cost of living. This was a broad hint that a more favourable decision was contemplated. Instead of accepting the Court’s advice, the Communistled union decided to try direct negotiations with the employers. This was probably not because watersiders resented the Court’s scepticism about their skill, but because this course would make it easier for them to get the support of other unions. This support might not have been forthcoming if the watersiders had defied a Court from which the Australian Council of Trade Unions had just received the substantial margins award. But the A.C.T.U. might be able to take a more sympathetic view of the watersiders’ by-passing the Court and refusing the employers’ offer on the allegation that much the same employers had given New Zealand watersiders better terms. The AC.T.U. has, in fact, taken this course. Most Australians would probably agree that the watersiders were entitled to an increase in wages, though not necessarily to the extent of restoring their former advantage over skilled workers. What is at issue in this dispute is the watersiders' method of trying to enforce their claims and the attitude of unions generally in accepting the Court’s jurisdiction when it suits them, and of flouting the Court when this seems more profitable. Mr James Healy, the secretary of the watersiders’ union, has chosen his time well, because of Australia’s trade balance difficulties. In some years and at some seasons a wharf strike would not greatly affect the trade balance either way, shutting out imports as it shuts in exports. But in <a year when the balance is against Australia, a strike at the peak of the wool-selling season is a different matter. As unshipped wool piles up, overseas buyers are less inclined to bid, with the result that prices are almost certain to fall. The “ Sydney Morning Herald ” has cal> culated that a drop of 3d a pound in the price of wool would cost Australia £10,000,000. The “Sydney “Morning Herald” also noted that the Australian wheat industry was in a difficult position in the present highly competitive situation, because it would not only lose immediate sales but also allow rival countries to get footholds in some of its overseas markets. .However the strike ends, Australia’s economy must be seriously damaged, a factor that may yet shake the decision of the A.C.T.U. to follow Mr Healy’s lead. The attitude of the other unions may well be decisive in the industrial war declared by the watersiders.