Trains hit again in Queensland

Press, 26 August 1982, Page 8

Trains hit again in Queensland

NZPA Brisbane Queensland will be without trains' again today while mass meetings of 26 Australian Government blue collar unions decide whether to end their 12-day strike. The meetings in 14 main centres will vote on a union executive plan to alter the course of the current dispute over claims for a 38-hour week for 60,000 Crown employees. The union executives met yesterday to decide their next move after the collapse of the State’s general strike. “We can not release the details of the plan until it has been put to the men, but different tactics, have been formulated,” said a union spokesman.

The blue collar employees are expected to be asked to return to work and impose immediate overtime bans on all State Government departments.

The Bjelke-Petersen Government has remained firm in its opposition to a 38-hour week on grounds that the current downturn in the economy would be hastened under the added burden.

A railway union spokesman said: “We do not feel let down by the unions who decided to go back to work yesterday. Many have placed bans on Government services. And if the Government pulls its Essential Services Act out again I am sure all the other unions will rally to our support."'