SHIPPING DISPUTE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 86, 10 January 1928, Page 9

SHIPPING DISPUTE

CASE FOR AUSTRALIAN SEAMEN’S UNION

RIGHT TO HOLD STOP-WORK MEETING

BY Telegraph.—press association,

Copyright.

Sydney, January 9. Mr. Jacob Johnson, general secretary of the Australian Seamen’s Union, in reply to the shipowners’ statement regarding the seamen’s dispute, says that the argument of the union is that the seamen should have been allowed time off without any deduction of pay to attend the meeting, because, according to the Legislature, Tuesday- was a holiI day. If the owners had succeeded in forcing the seamen to attend a meeting on a holiday, they would Jiave been breaking the agreement, which provides that the meeting is to take place in the owners’ time. Furthermore, the owners should not have logged the men in the way they did, but should have referred the dispute to the Conciliation Committee. In logging the men, the owners were merely carrying out the instruction of their association. It was significant that- the companies which were not members of the association, including the Commonwealth Line, did not log their men. [The Commonwealth' Steamship Owners’ Federation, in a statement on Saturday regarding the seamen’s dispute, said that the difficulty which had been created in connection with the stopwork meeting was only a part of the whole system of militant tactics which was being employed by certain officials of the Seamen’s Union and other maritime unions with a. reckless disregard of the consequences. The question was not merely one of the seamen being absent- without leave for a few. hours, but it was one of certain officials of the union pursuing their destructive tactics and ordering the rank and file to defy’ the masters of steamers and the owners, and to break the agreement and articles they signed without any regard to the disastrous consequences to the men themselves, the public,', and the industry. It was quite obvious that such action was subversive of all discipline, and that no industry could be maintained while such conduct was tolerated. The shipowners were making, and had made, strong efforts to put a stop to this “job control.”]

MORE IDLE VESSELS (Rec. January 9, 7.40 p.m.) Sydney, January 9. The crews of the Moreton Bay, Ormiston, and Canberra have been paid off and the vessels tied up. Having succeeded in rendering these vessels idle, it is expected the seamen will now wait for the owners to make the next move. The union now has a large number of unemployed within its ranks.