NO AGREEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 107, 6 May 1926, Page 9

NO AGREEMENT

UNIONS PREPAEE FOR FIGHT,

SYDNEY, sth May. The conference between the Labour Council and the metal trades employers' representatives, after lengthily discussing the forty-four hour difficulty failed to reach an agreement. The council asked the employers to work Federal unionists forty-four hours for forty-four hours' pay, undertaking to ask the unions if they would accept whatever new Federal awards might be issued. The employers considered the proposal, and announced that it intended to maintain the attitude already adopted, that Federal awards must be observed in their entirety. They declared that if the unions were sincero in their intention to uphold recognised authority they should immediately instruct their members to uphold the existing Federal awards until any alterations were made by the Federal Arbitration Court. The proceedings were friendly 6n both sides. After the conference Mr. Garden, secretary of the Disputes Committee, «aid the unions had explored every channel in the hope of finding a compromise, bat the employers were adamant. As they wanted a fight, they would get it The men were determined not to go back to forty-eight hours or do Saturday work.