LABOUR UNREST

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 1 May 1926, Page 7

LABOUR UNREST

EXTRA EDITION.

AUSTRALIAN TROUBLES

SHORTER WEEK DISPUTE

GRAVE CONSEQUENCES FEIA RED

BY CABLE —PRESS ASSOCIATION —COPY'RIGHT. Received 11.55 ■a.-m. to-day. SYDNEY, May 1. Mr. Myhill, .secretary of the Metal Trades Employees’ Association, has announced tliat "he has been officially informed by Mr. Pinkerton, district secretary of the Federated Engine-drivers' and Firemen’s Association, that the Federal executive of the union had decided to instruct its members to work the forty-eight hours’- week in the tennis of the Federal award. Mr. Atkins, State secretary of the Association, said that it should not be inferred from this decision that- the Association was not in sympathy with the forty-four hours’ week proposal._As a matter of fact application was now before the Federal Arbitration Oonrt for a variation of the Association’s award to provide fora forty-four hours’ week. Mr Garden, commenting on the refusal of the Federal Prime Minister, Mr. S. M. Bruce, to- convene a conference to discuss the forty-four hours’ week, said that if an upheaval occurred: Mr. Bruce would have to shoulder the responsibilXity. It would not be eia.icl that he had been given an opportunity to -avert an industrial ciisis. If the employers of the metal trade carry out their threat approximately forty thousand workers will he out in the industry. The State Government takes -a serious view of the trouble in the coal fields, and Ministers fear that the trouble threatened by the Federal unions respecting the forty-four hours 7 week failure may lead to grave consequences. The Minister of Labour, the Hon. Mr Baddelev, who- is in Newcastle, has been urgently summoned to return to Sydney in order to- he present if any serious development occurs. It is stated in Ministerial circles that it is doubtful whether the Government could intervene officially in -the disputes. -as both are concerned, with Federal unions.