INDUSTRIAL CRISIS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21548, 30 October 1944, Page 4

INDUSTRIAL CRISIS

GRAVEST SINCE i 9 41 STRIKES”IN N.S.W, COAL POSiTiON GRAVE (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY. Oct. 28. Tito Curtin Government is facing the gravest industrial crisis since' it assumed attics in October. 5 4 1 . save the dydney Daily Telegraph': political coticspontieni k. .lay. in Nilv, Eoiiffi Wale:- yesreriiaj :>n>" u'iiVKi.rs hi coai ivui'if-s, rubber Wiui:., shipbuilding yards, and on wharves were on strike. About 50U0 workers Will hold stop-work meetings here today and on Monday. The coal position has become almost as grave ns last June, when constant mine stoppages forced the introduction of coal rationing. Yesterday nearly 3400 miners were idle at 10 pits, involving a loss, of 10,000 tons of coal. This brought the losses through stoppages for tiro 20 working days this month to more than 100,000 tons —the worst month since June. Alarmed at the serious drift in the coal position, the Australian Council of Trades Unions is trying to arrange an immediate conference with the Prime Minister, Mr. J. Curtin In a provocative statement, the general secretary of the Miners’ Federation, Mr. G. W. S. Grant, said to-day that unless the miners received an understanding of how the coal boards would operate they would revert to “jungle conditions.” The miners are also seeking the appointment of a Federal Minister for Mines and the Australian Council of Trades Union officials arc understood to have been informed that the present high rate of stoppages is only a foretaste of the serious trouble ahead unless Government action is taken to satisfy certain miners’ grievances. “Our relations with the Federal Government have reached an extremely serious stage,” said the Miners’ Federation president,- Mr. If. Wells, yesterday. “The Government’s continued inaction on issues vital to the miners is certainly not calculated to increase coal production. It threatens a position that would open up really serious perspectives for the whole Labour movement.”