ABOLITION OF BUREAU

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 154, 27 December 1924, Page 7

ABOLITION OF BUREAU

A DUBIOUS SETTLEMENT.

(rROJI Oflß OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

SYDNEY, 17th December. "With, much flourish some of the principal parties to the prolonged waterfront dispute emerged from a conference called, by the Prime Minister (Mr. Bruce), and announced that a settlement had been reached. The chief bone of contention, it will be rememberedy has been the Waterside Workers' Federation's demand for the abolition of the Sydney Labour Bureau, which was created after the 1917 waterfront strike, and which' for some time past has been composed entirely of returned soldiers. In. order to enforce their'demand -for abolition the union boycotted, in other Australian ports, where no such bureau exists, ships which had been, handled by the bureau labour in Sydney. The use of this bureau labour has been practically confined to oversea, companies, and it has been the rreat oversea liners that have been chiefly aftected, with serious results to commerce. The" Arbitration Court proceedings having proved abortive, the Prime Minister called a conference. Some people call _ the result a settlement; others call it a surrender; the returned soldiers call it a.betrayal. The effect of it is that the bureau shall be abolished- tliat tho." men who compose it shall be admitted to the union, and participate m the ordinary union preference and that the union in future will submit to conciliation in its disputes instead of to direct action Tho. unionists are jubilant, and the letmned soldiers disgusted. The former openly hail it as a° victory for Zed action. However, the bureau men are" not a willing sacrifice. -They are denlTv' a T,d ha, ve stlll a trump card to play Ihey do not consider themselves bound in any way by the settlement. They contend that they have been igimred. As principals in the dispute they say, they should have been invited l.f 7 Ce ' ? nd a"y 6ettlements abiogatinj} their rights and promises that have been made to them, if it be not reached with their concurrence is no settlement at all, so far as they'are concerned. Such is their moral stand. They consider that they can make a wI? nSthI egS rt t-00- SOOll aftl* the wa> the State Nationalist Government PaS, S(f a" A«t fjving absolute pre™^ to leturned soldiers, and behind this the men, are stronglyentrenching themselves, me Act lay* it down that notwithstanding anything in the Arbitration Act or any Act amending it, or in any award or industrial agreement, every employer' shal give preference to a returned Ll- . It so happens that, after an intervening period in the .shades of opposition, the Nationalist leader, Sir George Fuller who was m p-wer when the 1917 strike occurred and whose determination smashed that rtrike and was instrumentalm establishing this famous bureau, and who also passed the Returned Soldiers Preference Act, is now in power Having made up tl'eir, minds not to avail themselves of the opportunity afforded by the terms of settlement of pining the union and merely participating in its general preference, the bureau men approached the Premier, asking for an assurance that the provisions of 't,ft me Soi dlei-s' Preference Act fV !• be 1? e I V forced- This assurance Sir Geoige Fuller gave. It is contended that this will effectively bar the union th"J? l, t£ mi£ s firs' Preference even though the bureau is abolished The plans of the soldiers' organisation, it is stated, are that its members shall piesent themselves wherever "pickineup isi done, and if preference is refused the defaulting employers will be prosecuted under the Act, There the position rests at the moment of writing. In the meantime the oversea ships at the other ports are being handled and the next move will be the formal 'abolition of the bureau by the employers who created it, whereupon the soldiers will tert their position. Sundry minor disputes affecting interstate shipping re . mam unsettled, as also does the dispute respecting privately-owned ships chartered in England by the Commonwealth Government Line, which tho union contends is an attempt to undermine the Australian award.

I'he came news In this Issue accredited to 'The Tinea" has eppe*red ia thtt ionrnal, bat