SHIPPING INDUSTRY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 82, 19 March 1928, Page 7

SHIPPING INDUSTRY

TROUBLES OF THE OWNERS. “AN ARISTOCRACY' OF LABOUR’’ Melbourne, .March 18. Mr. W. T. Appleton, chairman ot directors of the Huddart Parker Company, addressing the shareholders, reveiwed industrial troubles as regards the shipping industry. He declared that through various concessions gained under the Arbitration Act, the seamen had built up an aristocracy of labour in marine circles, which the Court found itsell unable to control, while the shipowners’ hands had been tied behind their backs, with no possible opportunities of conducting their affairs with satisfaction to themselves or anyone else. Mr. Appleton said he had been forced to the conclusion that the arbitration system was doomed to failure. “It lives while it gives anu when it ceases to give it will probably cease to live,” he said. “Unions openly state that if wages and conditions are not satisfactory to them they will not work peaceably under them. In a public statement a Seamen’s Union official said that there could be no industrial peace until the employers gave voluntarily to the employees what they saw tit to demand.” Employers were trammelled m every direction by awards and regulations, which took control from those who had a practical knowledge of particular industries. The basic wage was determined on fallacious promises, and wages were filed without regard to output. On the other hand, when an employer in protected industries, paying high wages with burdensome conditions, sought assistance from the’Tariff Board, the men promptly sought to participate, and so the merry round went on.