COCKATOO WORKSHOPS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XII, Issue 239, 21 September 1922, Page 7

COCKATOO WORKSHOPS.

SYNDICATE NEGOTIATING FOR PURCHASE. Sydney, Sept. 20. A conference of iron trade officials was notified by a private syndicate that it is negotiating with the Commonwealth to take over Cockatoo Island as general engineering workshops'. The conference passed a resolution deprecated handing over a national enterprise to private enterprise, but assuring the latter of co-operation of unions in the event of the negotiations succeeding, provided the new company conforms to the conditions previously existing in shops on the waterfront.— (A. and N.Z.) [A Sydney report dated Septem? ber 13th read as follows: Employees at Cockatoo Island, or, rather, a section of them, who yesterday started the it; go-slow policy, have been dismissed. Yesterday 150 boilermakers who refused to work the “rattlers,” the union name for the rivetting machines, were dismissed. With their dismissal over 100 assistants have been thrown out of work. To-day further men were dismissed, and the island is now almost at a standstill. The reason why the men refuse to work the machines is that while there are so many out of employment, the work, or a big section of it, should be accomplished by hand, thus giving work for more men. When the men were requested to manipulate the machines they point-blank refused. The dismissals followed. The Council of Action, which will meet in Sydney on September 26th, will deal with the position of the workers at Cockatoo 1 sland. ]