Uerest In Australia Causing Great Concern

Northern Advocate, 5 September 1945, Page 5

Uerest In Australia Causing Great Concern

SYDNEY, This Day

The wave of industrial unrest in Australia is causing a serious setback to the smooth transition from wartime to peacetime conditions, and is an embarrassment to the Federal Labour Government.

As _ the "Sydney Morning Herald” puts it, the coalminers have long since set themselves above the law, and now other unions accustomed to accept the regulation of their conditions by the courts, are also showing preference for direct action.

The one-day strike of railway workers in Victoria last week was a case m point. In Brisbane, tramway men have been on strike for a week over the roster system, and one of their officials has frankly expounded the doctrine that the strike weapon is to be preferred to arbitration when there is no guarantee that the court will grant the union claim. For the second time this year, maintenance men at Bunnerong power station are on strike, and Sydhey’s electricity supply—recurrently threatened with rationing because the miners will not produce enough coal —is again in jeopardy. For the past fortnight half a dozen or so mines Have been idle every day in Nev.South Wales. Already a number of industries in this State and Victoria have had to close down because of lack of coal. Challenge Courts The perturbation of serious-minded Australians over this wave of strikes is reflected in newspaper editorials. The "Sydney Morning Herald” says that at a time when peace in industry is essential to the smooth transition from war conditions, the arbitration system—the established Australian method of adjusting disputes—is system to be an infallible preventive being widely challenged. “Nobody expects the arbitration Of strikes, but it is in danger of becoming discredited when powerful sections in key industries flout the authority of the courts,” the paper says. ”The danger is greater when Labour Governments, in their anxiety to obtain a settlement not only fail to uphold that authority but actually toko steps to impair it.”

The “Herald” adds that stoppages are serious in their implications for the Labour movement industrial and political. •

The “Daily Telegraph,” in agreeing with this view, says the greatest problem Mr Chifley inherits from the late Prime Minister is the job of keeping the militants of the trade \mion movement in line. Mr Chifley must realise that his dovernment will fail in its job and damage Australia gravely by its failure if it cannot maintain peace in industry over the next few years, when we have to re-order our affairs internally while building ourselves back into the system of international trade. The militants are as much his enemies as the reactionaries. Unless he destroys them, they will destroy him —and the Labour Party as well.