SPLIT WIDENS IN RED-CONTROLLED CLERKS’ UNION

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23217, 31 March 1950, Page 5

SPLIT WIDENS IN RED-CONTROLLED CLERKS’ UNION

SYDNEY. March 30. The split in the Communist-led Federated Clerks’ Union is widening and Labour Party officials say the future of the union is in jeopardy. In Melbourne newly-elected anticommunist officials seized the union's offices and records from the defeated militant executive which had refused to hand them over after the ballot which overthrew it last week. The new executive obtained entry through the back door, but had to employ a locksmith with an electric drill to cut the safe open. Quantities .of Communist literature were found in the back room. The only militant official left is the State secretary, Mr. F. J. Meyer, who has been suspended pending an investigation of his refusal to admit the new executive to the offices. Meanwhile, the annual conference of the Federated Clerks Union now being held at Nowra. 100 miles south of Sydney, has become completely Communist.

Last night delegates of the taxation officers’ branch, which was the only non-Communist branch left at the conference, walked out when the conference refused to rescind a resolution debarring the new non-Communist Victorian delegates.

At the start of the conference four other non-Communist branches were denied admission. This conference, which purports to be representing the national body, now consist of three militant branches and the delegates of the defeated Victorian executive.