THE FIGHT IN AUSTRALIA

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 36, 14 February 1929, Page 11

THE FIGHT IN AUSTRALIA

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, 7th February.

Another industrial upheaval is forecasted for Australia. The Australian Council of Trades Unions plains to develop the timber workers' etryko, now in full progress in four of the States, into a general fight by all Federal unions for a 44-hour week.

The A.CT.U. officials claim that if the timber workers are beaten, in their protest against a return to the week, a general attack will ba made on wage standards of all unions, and that tho 44-hour week, gained fram the Arbitration Court after many ye»irg of expensivo fighting, will be lost for years. Sentiments of this kind were oxprossed by the conference of the Australian Workers' Union, and it IB significant that these two bodies, snch deadly opponents in all other matters, should be in agreement over one great policy matter. The A.CT.U. departed from its usual attitude and'send; to the A.W.U. an invitation to attend the All-Australian conference. As part of the A.CT.U. campaign it may bo proposed that other unions related to 4he timber trade should cease work so as to bring the dispute to a conclusion as soon as possible. APPEAL FOR FUNDS. "In an appeal for funds issued by tho Strike Committee of tho A.C.T.TX, which assumed control of the timber workers' dispute, it was statcdj "The fight that hag been undertaken, while ostensibly, confined to timber workers arising out of an | Arbitration Court judgment, with, attempts to force timber workers back from a ,44 to a 46-hour week, and. tho drastic wage cuts imposed by Judge Lukiu, with his attempt to introduce a most pernicious system of payment by results, together with a dilution of labour sought to bo brought about by dragging dpwn skilled men to the basic wage and increasing boy labour by 100 per cent, affects all organisations. It will readily bo seen that, should th© timber workers fail, other organisations ' will soon meet similar attempts on their wages and conditions. It is only by the onion movement showing that it is solidly behind the timber workers that the employers and the Arbitration Court will be brought to realise that the Australian workers are not prepared to be forced back to conditions prevailing, before unionism obtained its present strength." As the miners are threatened with wholesale dismissals, and with reductions in wages, and tho watersidera still bear a grudge against someone for their recent defeat, tho material is certainly here fqr a blaze once a match is applied. ■ .