SERIOUS TURN

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 1 July 1925, Page 7

SERIOUS TURN

TO SHIPPING DISPUTE,

UNION’S ULTIMATUM

KORTNI GUT’S NOTICE. Lit CABLE—PRESS ASoOCIAi JON— OOP VBIGHT, SYDNEY, June 30. A stop-work meeting of the Seamen’s Union decided tliat, unless the guarantee clause demand was conceded, as each vessel arrives at its home part in the Commonwealth the men will give 14 days’ notice to cease work from July 4. This will apply to all owners not conceding the men’s demands. It is understood that only two lines have so far granted the men’s demands —the Burns, Pliilp and the Patrick Steamship Companies. This is the most serious move on the men’s part so far, as it threatens to hang up the whole local shipping.

DEPUTATION TO .PRIME MINISTER.

MELBOURNE, June 30

A deputation representing the industrial organisations concerned in the shipping dispute waited on the Federal Prime Minister (Mr S. M. Bruce) with a view to arriving at a settlement through the medium of the Prime Minister’s interference.

The deputation submitted a scheme providing for round table conferences to settle any future shipping disputes. Failing a settlement being reached at these conferences the State dispute committee should be called upon to settle the trouble, but if this failed, and the dispute threatened to involve other unions of an inter-State character, the Commonwealth Disputes* Committee should then make an effort to settle the trouble.

Mr Bruce, in repy, said he agreed that a coneiderabe amount had been done by the disputes committe to avoid an industrial upheaval, but the present trouble had arisen because the seamen deliberately forced it upon themselves, their attitude being that they did not want the ordinary arbitration machinery of Australia to apply to them. . He added that if Mr Tom Long, the union leader, continued his present attitude Australia was going to experience tremendous industrial unrest, and the whole shipping industry would be held up again. It appeared to him that it was time for trade unionism generally to repudiate Mr Walsh and his doctrines. He (Mr Bruce) would not interfere, and he advised the seamen that if they had a method of settling the trouble to submit it to the Commonwealth Line management.

REASON FOR. MEN’S ULTIMATUM

N ECfOT IA LYONS R E FI T SED

ATTITUDE OP OWNERS

Received July 1. 11.35 a.m. SYDNEY. July 1

It is stated on behalf of the Seamen’s Union that the reason the seamen decided to uiev fourteen days’ notice was that if each crew waited until the articles expired before entering the struggle one section of the workers would be out of employment for a considerable period before the shipowners submitted to sufficiently strong pressure to cause them to review the position. Received Julv 1 11.30 a.in. MELBOURNE, Julv 1.

Acting on a suggestion by Mr. Bruce, the Federal Prime Minister, that the shipping dispute is now one between the seamen and the employers, the deputation which waited upon him decided to seek direct negotiations wit the shipowners, but after a hurried meeting of the Steamship Owners’ Association a reply was sent to the deputation stating that, in view of the fact that Mr. Walsh had publicly declared that job control was here to stay, and as this is confirmed bv the official journal of the Seamen’s Union, the association considers it would be useless and improper to meet in conference anv persons purporting to be representatives of the Seamen's Union.