Red Union Leaders Removed From Commission Seats

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22946, 14 May 1949, Page 5

Red Union Leaders Removed From Commission Seats

CANBERRA, .May 13. The Federal Cabinet has decided to cancel the appointments of Messrs. J. Healy and E. Roach as members of the Commonwealth Stevedoring Industry Commission.

Mr. Healy is general secretary and Mr. Roach, assistant general secretary of the Waterside Workers’ Federation which they have represented on the commission.

The Cabinet decided that the federation should be asked to nominate two members to take their place. Both men are Communists and the Government’s action is interpreted as a further challenge to the Communist Party.

Mr. Roach and Mr. Healy had previously refused to give an undertaking that thev would co-operate with the main body of the commission in its decisions.

The chairman of the commission, Mr. Justice Kirby, demanded an undertaking after they supported the waterfront strike last month over the gaoling of Mr. L. J. McPhillips. The Minister of Shipping, Senator W. P. Ashley, said that watersiders should give an undertaking or risk losing the ‘‘commission and the benefits that flow from it.' 1 The Federal Council of the Waterside Workers’ Federation decided that the undertaking should not be given. The first Stevedoring Industry Commission was set up by the Curtin Government in 1942 under the national security regulations to organise and control waterside operations in Australia.

The present body was constituted under legislation passed in December 1947. With Mr. Justice Kirby are delegates from overseas and Australian shipping interests and the Commonwealth and two representatives of the watersiders.