AUSTRALIA’S INDUSTRIAL TROUBLES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 306, 29 November 1927, Page 6

AUSTRALIA’S INDUSTRIAL TROUBLES.

The waterside workers’ strike against overtime, which originated in Sydney and has been taken up in the other Australian States, threatens to bring about an industrial upheaval m the Commonwealth. With unemployment rife in New South Wales and Victoria, the shipping hold-up, which of necessity follows the watersiders’ action, can only lead to further unemployment and much consequent distress. The strike limits the working hours of the day to the one set of workers, cargoes only being handled, either in loading or unloading, up to 5 p.m. daily. Shippers are .uusally very active at this season of the year and, with congestion at the wharves, the producers must suffer. Australia had more than its share of perverse action on the part of Labour unions—action that has involved it in heavy losses. The failure of the Commonwealth Shipping Line may be set down to the destructive action of the Seamen’s and Cooks’ and Stewards’ Unions in endeavouring to establish “job control” on the Government liners and the delays thus occasioned in the despatch of the vessels. Eight millions of the capital invested in these ships has been written off, yet the annual loss on their running is increasing and last year amounted to £595,000. If ever a well-inten-tioned scheme was deliberately wrecked by the vagaries of labour, it has been this scheme to establish a Commonwealth line of steamers to keep down passenger fares and freights between Australia and Great Britain- The men employed on the vessels received higher rates of pay than the employees of any other shipping line, outside of Australian owned vessels on Australian registers, and the conditions of the service were good. But the scheme failed, largely because of the irritation tactics adopted by the unions under the direction of such men as Walsh and Johansen. Now the Federal Government has the vessels up for sale, and it is seriously proposed by the unions to declare them “black” if they are sold, which, in view of the restrictions the Government is placing upon them —one being that they must continue in the service between Australia and British Home ports for ten years —appears problematical. The watersiders who are now on strike are not likely to benefit by their action, as the shipping companies rightly insist that the award, under which they were working, must be obeyed. The men are placing heavy additional handicaps upon the unemployed in the several shipping centres, and causing great inconvenience both to the travelling public and the importers and exporters at one of the busiest seasons of the year. If the strike extends as a similar strike on the part of the seamen did in 1924, very heavy losses will be sustained by traders and the shipping companies,_ with a further disastrous dislocation of business which must cause grave trouble in the Commonwealth.