AID FOR SEAMEN

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 69, 14 December 1935, Page 11

AID FOR SEAMEN

Allied Unions to Help Finance Strike

NO SETTLEMENT YET High Court to Hear Application By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright. (Received December 13, 9.5 p.m.) Sydney, December 13. Following a conference with officials of the Sydney Labour Council, the delegation from the seamen and the two visiting representatives from Melbourne of the Australian Council of Trades Unions, Messrs. C. Crofts and A. Monk, to-day recommended that all affiliated unions provide financial assistance for the senmen strikers. Further meetings of the executives of those unions likely to be affected by the strike will he held at Sydney and Melbourne on Monday. In the meantime no overtures for a settlement of the strike are likely to be made. Pickets are patrolling the wharves and shipping offices. The Seamen’s Union applied in the High Court to-day for an injunction against the Commonwealth, claiming that t'he Transport Workers Act and the regulations were ultra vires of the constitution. Mr. Justice Evatt, before whom the matter was mentioned, fixed the hearing of the application for Monday before the full High Court. The shipowners estimate that 500 strikers have already permanently lost their former employment: as a result of the licensing system. Although shipowners report a slackening in the number of qualified men offering for employment, a sufficient number of men has been engaged for at least 12 freighters at three Australian ports. There have been sailings fixed for the week-end. The Wairuna is due to sail to-morrow for San Francisco. Delegates of the Australian Railways Union are assembling on Monday to discuss the strike and to formulate a policy in the event of its extension.