Dispute over

Press, 18 July 1979, Page 8

Dispute over

NZPA Sydney Mass meetings of telecommunications workers throughout Australia have voted to lift work bans which have been disrupting communications and after the acceptance of several union conditions, there was a speedy return to normal work.

The vote to lift the bans was carried by slim majorities in all states except Western Australia, where it was overwhelmingly carried. But feelings of rank-and-file members were bitter about the Federal Government’s intervention into the month-long dispute. The proposal that employees accepted sets out guide lines for the 20 per cent wage claim for Telecom workers which has been at the centre of a month-long bitter dispute resulting in a head-on clash between the Federal Government and the union movement.

In Melbourne, the first joint meeting of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Combined Public Service Unions has decided on stop-work meetings to consider a 24-hour national strike against the proclamation of the controversial Federal Employment Act. The act, which was proclaimed in the face of the telecommunications strike, provides for the suspension Or sacking of striking civil servants.

Meanwhile, mail services in New South Wales, already reduced to a trickle by a lengthy industrial dispute at Australia’s main a m i I-processing centre, stopped last evening when sorters went on strike for 24 hours. The sorters have been waging a long campaign against plans by Australia Post to decentralise the postal system.