Canadian Govt. To Run Marine Unions

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30200, 3 August 1963, Page 11

Canadian Govt. To Run Marine Unions

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) OTTAWA, August 1. The Canadian Government will prepare special legislation to take over the country’s five maritime unions, the Labour Minister (Mr Allan MacEachen) told the House of Commons today, the Canadian Press reported.

The unprecedented legislation. under which three trustees would run unions representing 21.000 sailors, engineers and deck officers on ships, ferried barges and tugs on the Great Lakes and both coasts, would be ready for Parliaments autumn session, due to start in September. The five unions include the 15.000 - member Seafarers’ International Union of Canada. which was described in a recent judicial report as corrupt, lawless and a threat to the economy The report was made by Mr Justice T G Norris after a year's investigartnon of labour troubles and disruption of shipping on the Great Lakes The report proposed that the unions be put under trusteeship In the commons. Mr MacEachen said the report gave “an account of violence, corruption. Lawlessness mismanagement and misapplication of union funds and arbitrary control over the livelihood of seamen on the waters of the Great Lakes and the St Lawrence Seaway ” Mr MacEachen said the

decision to impose the trusteeship was made in consultation with the Canadian Labour Congress, the central body of labour in Canada. The C.L.C. expelled the S.I.U. in 1960 and pressed for an investigation. The Minister said both the Government and the C.L.C. agreed that trusteeship was justified only because of ' ‘extraordinary c i r c U instances” prevailing in Canadian shipping on the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway.