CHINESE STRIKERS CAUSE DIVERSION AT NEWCASTLE WHARF

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 August 1949, Page 5

CHINESE STRIKERS CAUSE DIVERSION AT NEWCASTLE WHARF

SYDNEY, This Day (Rec. 10 a.m.). —Seventeen Chinese stewards engaged in a sit-down strike on their ship’s gangplank at Newcastle fell in a heap to the wharf when the plank they had chosen for their demonstration proved unequal to the strain. They took with them a constable who was trying to board the ship Haven at the time. Two of the Chinese were taken to hospital. ' ■ When an attempt was made to shi ft the Haven to a coal-loading berth, Chinese crew members sat on the gang-plank and the lines which held the ship to the wharf. When the police arrived the Chinese used threatening language in their own tongue. The ship is still at the wharf. Reporters who sought information on the strike were greeted with ex-i cited gesticulations and cries of “more pay, more pay.” At a meeting in Sydney, the Chinese Seamen’s Union decided that the Chinese members of the Haven’s crew would not take the ship to sea until the'owners replied ,to their demands for an increased overseas allowance and a ’ positive assurance • that their families in Shanghai will receive the Australian basic wage as an allotment. The captain was asked to cable these demands to the owners in Hong Kong. The Haven, which has been tied up in Newcastle since the •. beginning of the coal strike, is : known locally as the “slow boat to China.”