WATERSIDERS' BOYCOTT

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 109, 11 May 1938, Page 11

WATERSIDERS' BOYCOTT

TIN & IRON FOR JAPAN

POLICY IN SYDNEY

ACTION BY GOVERNMENT

SYDNEY, May 10.

The Federal Government, ' takes a serious view of the repeated refusal of the Sydney waterside workers to load tin clippings and scrap iron for Japan, and has demanded some form of undertaking that this policy will be discontinued, failing which the penal clauses of the < Transport Workers' Act will be instituted.

This would mean that all men employed on the wharves would be compelled to become licensed. t

The difficulty in inducing Australian waterside workers to. load scrap metal for Japan originated in Sydney some weeks ago. Tin clippings, the watersiders contended, were to be used by the Japanese for munitions. This was denied by the exporters, who stated that they were used for detinning and for solder, and that the balance Was used as scrap for structural, purposes only. The boycott of loading tin clippings was extended to scrap and next to tallow intended for Japan, and the movement was extended to Melbourne. The trade in clippings was valuable to Australian can-makers and others canning goods,'in that it afforded an outlet for the use of a waste product worth £7 6s a ton free on board, and Japan was the best market for the material, Watersiders in Sydney decided to boycott the export of tallow to Japan on the ground that it is used in the manufacture of glycerine. They were asked to waive the boycott with , regard' to an order from a Japanese firm for a large shipment of tallow from the-State Abattoirs, but the request was unsuccessful. As a result, the order intended for the Australian Meat Board was divided between Melbourne, Adelaide, and New'/Zeaj land: Export of metal scrap from | New Zealand is under licence and no shipments have been made to Japan recently, although some scrap steel is I available for that purpose.