WHO IS TO BLAME?

Grey River Argus, 5 December 1924, Page 3

WHO IS TO BLAME?

SHIP BOSSES’ TRICKS. (•lack (’ado in Brisbane ‘‘Standard.’ ' Whenever a strike of ariv magni- | tad'' occurs v. hereby the public arc inconvenienced, it is the I ime honoured custom to blame the workers on strike as the selfish cause of all the trouble. This perversion is propagated by the Tory press in various ways until the public mind is impregnate-' with tin* bos' es ’ ideas, and poisoned against tin* workers concerned. The recent waterside dispute is no exception. Instead of the really guilty party —the shipowners—having to bear the responsibility of the trouble, the waterside workers are denounced and ' saddled with the responsibility. Cause of the Trouble. The waterside workers rightly contend that the shipping companies are acting illegally by retaining the ‘‘lov alist” bureau in Sydney tin- source of ! the whole trouble. Its continued cxis tencc is a direct challenge to the Federal Arbitration Court and its award. On December 24, last year, the President of the Federal Arbitration Court made the following award >n reference to waterside work:— “1. fa) The respondents . shall . . give preference of employment over all persons but returned soldiers and sailors—other things being equal—to returned soldiers and sailors who are members of the Waterside Workers’ Federation of Australia, -when requiring wharf labourers’ work to be done in Sydney. ’ ’ “Certain conditions are attached which bring the order of preference to:— ‘‘(1) Returned soldiers and sail ors who are members of the Vaterside Workers’ Federation. *‘(2) To returned soldiers and sailors. °(3) To members of Waterside Workers’ Federation.” The shipping companies, through their notorious ‘‘loyalist’’ bureau in Sydney, have ignored this award, and have continued to give preference to returned soldiers and sailors who are not members of the Waterside Workers’ Federation—actually, in practice, deliberate preference to non-unionists. Illegal Institution. ’ ’ The High Court in a. case, brought by the Waterside Workers’ Federation ! against certain shipowners in no uncertain terms branded the Sydney “scab bureau” as an illegal institu tion. inasmuch as its primary object was to evade the Federal award and be used as a screen by the shipping companies to continue to employ nonunion labour. In their judgment in this ease, Mr Justice Isaacs and Mr Justice Rich thus condemned the continuation of the Sydney “scab bureau”:— ‘‘But it (the bureau) mav also be made—or attempted to be made—the means of frustrating the will of the National Parliament of Australia in the settlement of industrial disputes that affect the welfare of , the whole community. And Hint, whatever the motive of its support, ers may be, appears to be the inevitable result if the Shipping Bureau can be successfully maintained as a. screen between the ship owners’ parties to the award and the Waterside Workers’ Federation. “Then, the Shipping Bureau being outside the award, they need not obey a single word of it, whatever

else they may have to obey. And us individual parties to the award, none | of the persons composing the bureau | need obey the award, because by the hypothesis not one of . them B the ‘ employer’ of the men.” Award and Court Defied. With the powerful aid of the unionhating Tory Fuller Government of Nev South Wales, the shipping companies did not, hesitate to adopt the sharp practice of having the bureau registered as a “firm” outside the operations of the award, and thus audaciously flaunt the preference clauses of the award. Having tried every legal means to secure the abolition of the obnoxious bureau, which is in reality an illegal J institution, the waterside workers have been forced to use their own industrial weapon of direct action. I” view of the uncamouflaged facts of the position it is tin* height of in justice to throw the onus of blame for the present conflict on to the workers instead of upon the arrogant. shipping companies who apparently are as prepared when the need arises to fight the Federal and High Court as well as the waterside workers. '