STRIKES AND STOPPAGES

Evening Star, Issue 25927, 19 October 1946, Page 7

STRIKES AND STOPPAGES

t v INDUSTRIAL UNREST IN AUSTRALIA SYDNEY WATERFRONT STILL PARALYSED • SYDNEY, Oct. 18.. The Minister for Supply and Shipping, Senator W. P. Ashley, has intervened in the watersiders’ strike, which is paralysing shipping on the Sydney waterfront. He will meet the Stevedoring Commission, union representatives, and ship owners to-day. Seven hundred shipping and tally clerks are threatening Sydney with a new waterfront stoppage on Monday. They will hold a stop-work meeting to press the claims for increased pay and holidays. They have given the employers until Monday to conform to their demands. FIREWORKS AT UNION MEETING. Last night’s meeting of the Trades Council produced the expected fireworks during the debate on wage pegging. Members of the Right and Leftwing factions interjected almost continuously, and often speakers could not be heard. The stormiest scene occurred when the national secretary of the Ironworkers’ Association, Mr Ernest Thornton, attacked the Prime Minister’s “ unreal attitude toward wage increases.” Reporting on the result of a deputation by the Australasian Council of Trade Unions, a member said: “We did not get- all we wanted, but we went a long way toward getting wage pegging modifications.’’ The wool clerks’ strike, which has held up the Sydney and Newcastle wool sales, now threatens to spread, to Fremantle, where the West Australian

branch of the Federated Clerks’ Union has_ given the woolbrokers’ clerks notice to disband their recentlyformed association and join the main union. ANOTHER 24-HOUR STRIKE. Dislocation of the railway and tram traffic in Sydney and suburbs is threatened by the decision of the key railway to stop work for 24 hours from 11 p.m. next Friday. Union officials believe that it will be possible for the staff to carry on under emergency conditions during the stoppage unless there is a breakdown. The action fs being taken as a protest against the reduction in the margins of shift workers and delay in hearing their claims 'After _ a conference of interested bodies it was announced that the Stevedoring Industry Commission will meet on Monday to try to settle the waterfront dispute In the meantime, ship owners and agents are reluctant to divert ships, from Sydney, as it is thought that any attempt to do so might extend the trouble.