NEW UPHEAVAL POSSIBLE

Grey River Argus, 29 November 1946, Page 5

NEW UPHEAVAL POSSIBLE

IN N.S.W. INDUSTRY Communist Action Alleged (Rec. 9.45). SYDNEY, Nov. 28. A spread of the dock dispute, and the possibility of trouble on two other industrial fronts' have appeared likely 7 to-day. An extension of the dock dispute to tie up the mines and other industries was threatened if the Federal Government did not intervene in the lock-out. This threat was made by the Federated Engine Drivers’ and Firemen’s Association, which sent a telegram to the Prime Minister, Mr J. B. Chifley, urging an immediate Royal Commission to enquire into the closing down of Morts dockyard. The telegram said that the Association had been asked to consider extending the dispute to the coal and other* industries. The events leading up’ to the lockout of eight thousand employees at the Sydney shipyards commenced on October 15, when at Morts dockyards twenty-eight crane drivers gave the management one week in which to grant their demand for a wage increase of one pound per week. On October 22, the management refused to grant this demand. The crane drivers then amended their claim, substituting two domestic demands, and the management asked for time to consider them, but the crane drivers walked off the job. On October 24, the management closed the dock, throwing idle nearly twelve hundred hands. On November 6, at a compulsory conference, the Morts Dock management conceded the crane drivers’ domestic demands on the condition that. the mqn resumed work, but Left Wing unions, at. the conference, demanded that the management grant, one pound per week of a wage increase and grant tea breaks, before the men agree to a resumption. On November 11, a mass meeting of the Morts Dock employees' was held. They decided by ,446 votes to 4 votes to resume work. Three days later, the Trades and Labour Council Disputes Committee rejected the mass meeting’s decision to resume work. The Council upheld the Left Wing unions’ demand for more wages and for tea breaks. On November 16. the employers threatened to close down all of the waterfront establishmenls, except the Cockatoo and Garden Island docks, unless, the Morts Dock dispute was settled. On November 20, the employers issued one week’s dismissal notice to 3200 permanent hands. These men, and also 3250 casual workers, were paid off yesterday. There remain also fifteen ’iiundred other employees who are affected by the lock-out. They were employed at Morts, Balmain, and Woolwich docks, and at Chapman’s slip. The Sydney Daily Telegraph, in a leading article, blames the Communists for the dock trouble. It says: “The lock-out is but the last stage of a bitter struggle. A few key men, who have been directed by Communist leaders, have been able to hold up the work of thousands of men”. ■ The paper says: “The granting of one pound weekly of a wage increase in defiance of the Commonwealth wage pegging regulations, would be illegal”. It adds: “The Communists, of course, are not interested in the men’s wages. They ar? interested merely in using general industrial discontent — created mainly by a fall in the value of money, as the result of high taxation, and of rising prices—to create that confusion in industry from which they hope to profit politically. Now that the employers have replied to direct action with direct action, the situation is deplorable. This bareknuckle method threatens to condemn to unemployment—just at the moment when the people expect a little ease and happiness in their lives—tensi of thousands of men who are not remotely interested in the motives which inspire the “Comrades’ ” battle in a three-way contest —between the Government policy and the law; the employers; and the Communist Party”.

OTHER DISPUTES (Rec. 10.5). SYDNEY, Nov. 28. Coal miners are incensed at a decision of Judge Rainbow of the Workers' Compensation Commission. They claim that the judge reduced a “dusted” miner’s compensation from £4 15s to £3 pei’ week. They contend that the State Medical Beard certified the miner as totally incapacitated, and that the Company had offered retrospective payments, and that when the claim came before the Compensation Commission, Judge Rainbow disallowed retrospective payments and reduced the pension. There is a threat of trouble in the transport unions. This follows the rejection by the Board of Reference of the Tram and Bus Employees’ Union of an application for overtime rates for week-end work—time and a-half for Saturday, and double time for Sunday.