STRIKES IN N.S.W.

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22618, 22 April 1948, Page 5

STRIKES IN N.S.W.

COMMUNIST UNIONS 84 PER CENT OF TIME LOST SYDNEY, April 21. Nine Communist-controlled unions, with only 26.1 per cent of the union membership in New South Wales were responsible for "84 per cent of the time lost by strikes in the State between September 1945 and December 1947. This is disclosed in a bulletin issued by an organisation formed to study the industrial and economic trend in Australia. The bulletin states that in the surveyed period 3,357,000 man days were lost of which nine unions were responsible for 2,830.000. The service estimates that, excluding miners, eight Communist-controlled unions representing 22 per cent of the total union membeiship, caused a loss of 75.5 per cent of the man days lost by strikes. The survey lists as Communist controlled. the miners federation, ship painters and dockers, ironworkers, waterside workers, engineering and building workers, engine drivers and firemen, seamen and federated clerks. Members of eight Communist-con-trolled unions, not including the miners, lost an average of 23.1 days work on strike compared with 1.5 days lost by members of non-Communist unions. The report concludes that an analysis of the disputes reveals the definite method of Communist tactics. One such union creates a new dispute immediately another has ended. This practice of “handing on the torch’’ was most evident in strikes affecting dockyards where 669,625 man days were lost.