Over 2000 Facing Unemployment Through Strikes

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22730, 31 August 1948, Page 5

Over 2000 Facing Unemployment Through Strikes

(N.Z.P.A. — Router—Copyright.) SYDNEY, Aug. 30,

Two long-standing strikes involving less than 70 men originally have paralysed two large factories and are threatening the employment of over 2000 workers.

Nearly two months ago 45 welders struck at the Orange factory of the Electricity Meter Manufacturing Company Poprietary Limited, known as EMMCO which normally employs 1300 people. The men demanded reclassification to first-class welders entitling them to 28s Gd a week higher wages. Three weeks later 14 key welders struck in support of the claim, forcing the company to stand down 700 men. Early in August the Federal Conciliation Commissioner . Mr. G. Mooney, confirmed the ruling made by the Conciliation Commissioner, Mr. D. V. Morrison, a year before that the men had been correctly classified by the company. The strikers, who are members of the Communist-Led Sheet Metal Workers’ Union, continued the dispute and negotiations are continuing, but 70C men are still out of work and the dispute threatens to spread. At the Clyde Engineering Company Works, 23 members of Federated En-gine-Drivers and Firemen's Association, who resigned, have decided not to return to the. company. The men are crane drivers and the company has said that if they do not return it will have to close the works and lay off about 1400 employees. Part of the plant is already idle. The Federal Conciliation Commissioner, Mr L. P. Austin, has called upon the men to return to work and so ensure the employment for the 400 men already laid off. A union official says that the men will not return until wages are adjusted, and that most of the 23 men are working in other jobs. Their discussions are held at week-ends to avoid losing time at these jobs.