SHIPPING DISPUTE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22545, 9 October 1936, Page 11

SHIPPING DISPUTE

PACIFIC COAST SETTLEMENT EFFORTS DEMANDS OF THE MEN By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received October 8, 5.5 p.m.) WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 In an effort to settle the Pacific coast shipping deadlock, Mr. Edward McGrady, Assistant Secretary of Labour, will confer with the Maritime Commission to-morrow. Later he will leave by air for the coast to present the commission's views. It is said that the commission, headed by Rear-Admiral Wiley, probably will offer its services without pressure on the shipowners or the seamen. Mr. Harry Lunderberg, head of the Seamen's Union on the Pacific coast, to-day presented the organisation's demands to the commission that it should bring pressure to bear on the shipowners who had "received millions in subsidies and refused to discuss wages, hours and conditions." In spite of this statement there have been three, conferences between the owners and the seamen in the past two months A cablegram from *on September 30 stated: —The Maritime Commission pleaded to-day with the owners and the unions in an endeavour to avert the threatened immobilisation of Pacific coast shipping. This would affect 37,000 men whose union contracts will expire early to-morrow. The commission sent a telpgram to Harry Bridges, the San Francisco Labour leader, as the key man, asking him to I accept a 60-days' extension of the present agreement. Later information is to the effect that a 15 days' truce is virtually assured in i. the dispute. \