Australian Postmen May Go On Strike

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28155, 19 December 1956, Page 15

Australian Postmen May Go On Strike

(Rec. 11.30 p.m.) MELBOURNE. December 18. Australia’s 33,000 postal workers may wreck Christmas arrangements with another regulation strike in support of their wage claims. In Melbourne today, the Public Service Arbitrator (Mr J. M. Galvin) announced in an interim decision that the claim for a rise of £2 a week would be rejected. “We might be cutting Father Christmas’s throat,” the secretary of the Victorian branch of the Amalgamated Postal Workers’ Union (Mr G. Slater) said tonight. The decision rested with the Federal executive of the union, which would call a special meeting to consider action tomorrow. “Plans have already been made,” he said. Mr Slater said postal workers would be “utterly disgusted” at the lack of consideration given to the claim. They wanted an average wage of £l6 16* I a week. “We believe we have a legitimate grievance. We had been looking for-

ward to a Christmas box for our members. Now they will be bitterly upset," Mr Slater said. In a statement on his decision, Mr Galvin urged the union to exercise patience, and await the outcome of the basic wage claim now before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. The union had claimed for an increase of £2 a week, to £l6 16s. “to give members an economic standard equivalent to the average worker in outside industry.” It also asked for the restoration of margins, which had been absorbed by increased basic rates in some States.