SOME PLAIN SPEAKING

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 250, 21 July 1942, Page 4

SOME PLAIN SPEAKING

On more than one occasion the Prime Minister of Australia has pointediv criticized those who, by creating trouble in the industrial sphere, have hampered the war effort of the Commonwealth 4 here have been instances of a glaring nature, and Mr._ Curtin has now made the charge that those responsible were assisting, the enemy. That mav not, of course, have been their deliberate intention, but that was the effect, and possibly this very blunt statement by the head of the Federal Government may bring the fact home to them, two oi three weeks ago several thousand men employed at a Commonwealth munitions factory assembled outside the gates and demanded that they should be allowed to resume work. For several days the plant ha been idle because a strike by clerks prevented the management from keeping the time and costing records necessary. The clerks had struck as a protest against their alleged exclusion from some “war loading” which they said had been given to other workers and they claimed an increase of 4/6 in wages. It was reported that similar strikes had occurred at two other munitions woi <s but that operations had continued. Mr. Curtin, on that occasion, advised the strikers to resume work and added that it was not the duty of the Government to fix wages. Proper authorities had been set up for that purpose and the machinery thus made available should be used. Last month there was a strike in a munitions works in South Australia, caused by 50 workers, that threw 750 hands idle. In the coal-mining industry in Australia there has been a steac y recurrence of industrial troubles, and it was hoped that these, an the stoppages in other industries would be dealt with finally at a conference which was to have been held late last month, but they have continued. The Leader of the Federal Opposition speaking in Melbourne recently, guaranteed the Government “the full support ot the Opposition in its efforts to maintain full coal production. the continuance of strikes on the coalfields has created much disappointment because early in June Mr. Curtin announced that, after a conference of all parties at Canberra, a standard procedure for settling all local matters in dispute had been accepted. . Probably it has been the failure of this plan that has caused the Prime Minister to speak so plainly. :