PLEA FOR STOP-WORK PROTEST

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22584, 12 March 1948, Page 5

PLEA FOR STOP-WORK PROTEST

Q’LAND UNIONS OVER AUSTRALIA ANTI-PICKETING ACT BRISBANE, Mar. 11. The Queensland Trades and Labour Council has decided to ask the Australian Council of Trade Unions to call an Aus-tralia-wide 24-hour stop-work meeting of a selected number of unions next Wednesday as a protest against the Queensland Government’s Act banning picketing, which is now law.

Though the strike lenders are organising an assault on the new law there are growing signs of the desire on, £he

part of many workers to get the strike over. Greater numbers of railwaymen returned to work yesterday than at any time since the strike began. During the day 140 trains ran. The Ipswich miners, who previously voted in favour of the strike by 331 to 291, have asked their district executive to ’take a fresh vote. It was declared, at a special meeting, that the voting was irregular as some men raised two hands and one section of the hall was not counted at all. Nearly 500 watersiclers who want to return to work have called a meeting for today and union officials have sent a hurried call to Sydney for the Federal secretary, Mr. ,T. Healey. When asked bv Mr. Bruxner, leader of the Country Party in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, whether he approved of the policy of the New South Wales branch of the Australian Railways Union in carrying leading Communists to Queensland to break the law, the Premier, Mr. J. McGirr, replied that lie was not aware that anything like that had occurred, ’