SYDNEY WHARF STRIKE

Grey River Argus, 6 April 1943, Page 2

SYDNEY WHARF STRIKE

Against Gang System RANK AND FILE HOLD OUT. SYDNEY, April 5. By a majority of two hundred, a mass meeting of. nearly four thousand Sydney waterside workers decicled to persist in the refusal to work under the gang system. Pleas by the union leaders and other State branches for a resumption of work were disregarded. The original decision in favour of striking, made at a mass meeting of two thousand watersiders on March 28, was almost unanimous. The gang system, already in operation in other States, was introduced in Sydney a week ago by the Stevedoring Industry Commission. Since then,’ the watersiders have refused to work and ships have'been worked by the army. Under the gang system, the men are picked up in gangs of about twenty. Gangs may be moved from one job to another as needed, thus eliminating delays in handling cargoes. 1 Under the old system, individual men were picked for particular jobs. Meanwhile, about three thousand soldiers have been unloading ships and despatching supplies for the battle zones. The union leaders who advised the men to return to work described the strike as “rotten.” They fear serious extensions of the strike may occur. “Four thousand able-bodied men cannot be permitted to lounge idly about the waterfront while this country is crying out for manpower,— while many other thousands of citizens are being taken feom their homes and vocations to work in construction camps,” says the Sydney “Herald” editorially to-day, urging immediate Government intervention in the “senseless, wrongful” strike. The paper declares that other wartime tasks must be found for workers who have refused to accept the conditions agreed to by their own executive. “Indulgence and appeasement only encourage industrial turbulence, the unruly element's apparently being blind or indifferent to the fact that the growth .of wartime strikes must be ruinous to the Labour Ministry. Mr Curtin is calling upon all people for sacrifices. He and his Government must see to it that no privileged section escapes the obligation to work or fight, while soldiers are required to fight and work as well.”