GENERAL STRIKE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 132, 1 December 1945, Page 8

GENERAL STRIKE

PLANNED BY MINERS

AUSTRALIAN DEVELOPMENT (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) Eec. 1.45 p.m. SYDNEY, Nov. 30. The Central Council of the Miners' Federation has decided to recommend a general coal strike in New South Wales to the aggregate stopwork meetings which will be held on Monday. All the miners on the northern coalfields are already on strike. The Australian Seamen's Union has ordered the stoppage of all coal and steel shipments to and from New South Wales from midnight tomorrow.

The strikes will dislocate most Australian industries and more than 300,000 workers may lose their jobs by next week. Power rationing, which is expected to result from the strike, would throw about 200,000 out of work.

The aim of the miners and seamen's unions is to force the Broken Hill Proprietary to negotiate with the deregistered. State branch of the Ironworkers' Association for a settlement of the Newcastle and Port Kembla steel strikes.

The Miners' Federation has been empowered to extend the strike to all ipjaies in Australia from next Wednesday. This would involve 10,000 coal miners in Queensland, Victoria, and Western Australia, in addition to 17,000 in New South Wales. The transport group of the Trades and Labour Council, representing 65,000 members of the railway, tramway, bus, and road transport unions, decided 'to make recommendations today to the State Labour Council executive as counter-measures against the miners stopping all forms of transport in the areas, including mines, where there are strikes. These would conserve available coal supplies for other services to unionists whose unions are prepared to observe the constitution of the Labour Council and stop a ban on transport for goods produced by striking miners who take other jobs.