UNIONIST MAY BE FREED

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31993, 21 May 1969, Page 15

UNIONIST MAY BE FREED

Continued Strikes Planned

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) SYDNEY, May 20. Union leaders in Sydney said tonight that planned strikes would continue despite the possibility that Victorian Tramways Union secretary, Mr Clarence O’Shea, will be released from gaol tomorrow. The gaoling of Mr O’Shea for contempt of court last Thursday started the wave of strikes which has affected every State in mainland Australia.

Today a Sydney man, Mr D. MacDougall, paid fines of $BlOO dollars incurred by the Victorian Tramways Union and $5OO by Mr O’Shea for taking part in illegal strike activity and cleared the way for Mr O’Shea’s release.

An application for his release will be made at a special sitting of the Commonwealth Industrial Court in Melbourne tomorrow morning.

But a railway union official said in Sydney that a 24-hour strike which will bring most public transport to a halt in New South Wales from midnight tonight would go ahead as planned. The assistant state secretary of the Locomotive Enginemen’s Union, Mr Noel Cox, said the payment of the fines did not solve the problems confronting unions because the strike was against the “harsh and unjust penalties” imposed under the Commonwealth Arbitration Act.

“It’s a long overdue fight against these penal clauses and unless a guarantee is given that the situation cannot occur again, the unions must continue to fight,” he added. Victoria and South Australia bore the brunt of today’s strikes, with no public transport and severe electricity and gas restrictions. Tomorrow’s stoppage in New South Wales will involve train and Government bus crews, waterside workers and Sydney Harbour ferry workers.

On Thursday New South Wales will again be hit—this time by a strike of 150,000 workers in key industrial unions..

The Australian Council of Trade Unions president, Mr Albert Monk, said tonight he had received a telephone call

from Mr Dudley MacDougall, who said that he planned to pay the fines. Mr MacDougall had told him that he was disturbed at the effect on women and children of continuing strikes. Mr MacDougall, a retired newspaper advertising executive, recently had a $200,000 lottery win. In Canberra tonight the Prime Minister (Mr John Gorton) told Federal Parliament

that the Government was still hopeful of reaching a “proper solution” to the present industrial disputes. Later, the Labour Minister (Mr Leslie Bury) told the House that the penal clauses in the Commonwealth Arbitration Act were the “linch pin” of the whole arbitration system. To remove them would cause the system’s collapse, Mr Bury said.