"EAT HIS WORDS."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19140, 5 October 1925, Page 11

"EAT HIS WORDS."

WAITRESSES ON STRIKE. A SHORTLIVED DISPUTE. A strike of 88 waitresses employed at the railway refreshment rooms in Melbourne is one of the latest incidents of industrial warfare in Australia- The object of the strike, as the girls put it, was "to make a horrid man eat his own words," and with that end in view they put their shingled heads together and decided tt> take a holiday. The trouble arose from the report of Captain Oswald Carter, an Englishman, who was brought out to reorganise the refreshment services for the Victorian Chief Railway Commissioner, Mr. Clapp. Mr. Carter is alleged to have reported that the waitresses at one of the rooms were lazy, dirty and unmanageable, and to have suggested that girls from overseas should be obtained to take their places. The girls took the matter up at once, and Mr. Clapp adopted the role of peacemaker, by hastening to assure the girls that, as a whole, they were giving the utmost satisfaction, and that the girls to whom the report referred wertj exceptions, and were confined to a country station. Regarding the suggestion that girls should be imported, the Commissioner stated that this had been made with the view of obtaining experienced staffs at country stations. This suggestion, the girls were assured, would not be adopted. The girls, however, did not regard these explanations as adequate. An unqualified apology was their demand, with the result that the refreshment room at the Flinders Street station was closed, and at Spencer Street only three of the usual waitresses remained at work. The girls who were working said that they could not see travellers go away hungry. There are from 3000 to 4000 men employed at the Newport railway workshops, and .daily 1500 of these obtain a hot meal in the departmental restaurant. These meals cost the men 9d for three courses, in addition to tea or coffee. Most of the waitresses resumed work after three days of strike. When a report by Captain Carter was read to them the girls said they would not have gone on strike had they known that it was a confidential report; that it applied to small country refreshment rooms; and that the girls who weca classed as lazy, dirty and unmanageable were no longer employed in liie service.