ABOVE THE LAW

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25940, 5 September 1945, Page 5

ABOVE THE LAW

AUSTRALIAN MINERS USE OF STRIKE WEAPON (N.Z.P.A. Special Aust. Correspondent) (Rec. 8 p.m.) SYDNEY, Sept. 4. The wave of industrial unrest in Australia is causing a serious set-back to the smooth transition from war-time to peace-time conditions, and is an embarrassment to the Federal Labour Government. As the Sydney Morning Herald puts it, the coal miners have long since set themselves above the law. Now other unions, which have been 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 in 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’s claim.

For the second time this year the maintenance men at the Bunnerong power station are on strike, and Sydney’s electricity supply—recurrently threatened with rationing because the miners will not produce enough coal—is again in jeopardy. For the past formight half a dozen or so mines have been idle every day in New South Wales. Already a number of industries in New South Wales and Victoria have had to close down because of lack of coal. The perturbation of serious-minded Australians oyer this wave of strikes is reflected in newspaper editorials. The Sydney Morning Herald says: “At a time when peace in industry is essential to smooth transition from war conditions, the arbitration system—the established Australian method of adjusting disputes—is being widely challenged. Nobody expects the arbitration system to be an infallible preventive of strikes, but it is in danger of becoming discredited when powerful sections of key industries flout the authority of the courts. The danger is greater when Labour Government, in their anxiety to obtain a settlement, not only fail to uphold that authority, but actually take steps to impair it.” The Herald adds: “The stoppages are serious in their implications ior ik Labour movement, industrial and political.” The Daily Telegraph, in agreeing with this view, says: “The greatest problem the Prime Minister (Mr J. B. Chifley) inherits from the late Prime Minister is the job of keeping the mili ants of the trade union movement in line. Mr Chifley must realise that his Government 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. Militants are as much his enemies as reactionaries. Unless he destroys them they will destroy him—and the Labour Party as well.” '