U.S. LABOUR

Hokitika Guardian, 18 September 1937, Page 5

U.S. LABOUR

FIGHT TO FINISH THE OPPOSING FACTIONS. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright). SAN FRANCISCO, September 16. Business at the great port of San Francisco is again tied up by a strike which promises to spread to Portland, Seattle and Los Angeles. The forces of the American Federation of Labour are locked in a struggle with those of tlie Committee of Industrial Organisation. Picket lines of the American Federation’s teamsters have completely isohrted the San Francisco waterfront, and this week-end shipping began to tie up as wharves became choked with unmoved freight. Six hundred drivers of heavy waterfront trucks obeyed the orders of Air Dave Beck, and refused to move their vehicles, because the Committee of Industrial Organisation longshoremen and warehousemen had prevented the trucking of canned goods from a packing company involved in a lock-out of warehouse union members. The latter have sworn allegiance to the Australian. Mr Harry Bridges, and a fight to a finish is in progress between Heck and Bridges for control of the labour situation along the whole West Coast. Business interests are supporting Beck. and hoping that he will eliminate Bridges. Air William Green, president of the American Federation of Labour, has telegraphed complete support for Beck, and called on the shipping community to support the teamsters. “The question,” he says, “is whether Bridges and his Communist organisation shall have full control of the Pacific Coast. “The teamsters are determined that ho shall not. We are prepared for a shut-down for several months.”