SHIPS AND SEAMEN

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 51, 28 August 1926, Page 9

SHIPS AND SEAMEN

PALACES FOR PASSENGERS

BUT FOC'SLES ARE SLUMS

INDUSTRIAL COMMISSIONER'S

CRITICISM.

(United Press Association.—Copyright.) SYDNEY, 27th August.

The Industrial Commissioner,, Mr. A. B. Piddington, K.C., in delivering his reserved, judgment in the appeal of the New South' Wales branch of tho Seamen's Union of Australasia, against the refusal of the Industrial Eegistrar to register it as an industrial union, severely criticised certain shipowners. Eeferring to the alleged job control on the Ulimaroa, he said that, apart from the initial wrongdoing on tho men's part, the responsibility for tho later delay was at least as much with the owners as with the men.

Commenting on tho general conditions of seamen, Mr. Piddington said the present state of things was that modern ships were floating cities with palatial splendour for passengers, but in which the ships' forecastle were floating slums.

Summing up the prospects of industrial peace in the shipping industry, lie said that there must be a fundamental alteration of the condition under which seamen lived, that the employers . must abandon the utilisation of the processes of law to postpone redress or escape from the admission of reasonable I claims, and that the einployeeg must abandon such methods of harassing . trade and penalising the public as were involved in the use of job control and direct action. , CASE BETWEEN UNIONS DECIDED. All the circumstances surrounding the formation of the New South Wales Coastal Seamen and Firemen's Union pointed to a suspicion that the union was formed, not to enable the employees to advance what were just claims against the employers, but as a rival to the Seamen's Union, with the' ultimate object of overthrowing the New South Wales branch of that union, which contained 50 per cent, of the total membership, and had in the past been fiercely antagonistic to the owners. Under these circumstances it was natural that the owners should want to get rid of it. There was a better prospect of securing industrial peace in the New South "Wales coastal trade if the Seamen's Union were admitted, to registration than if it were excluded.

The Commissioner allowed the appeal of the New South Wales branch of the Seamen's Union of Australasia* and admitted the union to registration, but ordered that the registration must lie in the office until the union lodged a deposit of £300 as security to abide by the result of any or^ler made by the Commission under the industrial Arbitration Act of the State. The deposit would be released after six months.

Mr. Piddington dismissed the qppeal of the New South Wales Coastal Seamen and Firemen's Union against the refusal to register it as. an industrial union.