SHIPPING STALEMATE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26558, 5 September 1947, Page 5

SHIPPING STALEMATE

AUSTRALIAN UNION DISPUTE COMPLETE STOPPAGE LIKELY Rec. 11 p.m. SYDNEY, Sept. 4. Letters of resignation from marine engineers, giving a month’s notice, are pouring into the head offices of Australian shipping companies from all ports, and a complete stoppage of shipping seems inevitable. Engineers are obeying the instructions of their union, which is fighting a bitter battle with the seamen’s and other maritime unions over a dispute which is five months old. A fireman was dismissed from the ship Corio last March. When he rejoined the ship, following instructions from the Maritime Industry Commission, four engineers refused to sail with him. They were eventually excluded from the industry by the commission. Heated' clashes within the commission and attempts by the. Engineers’ Union to have the men reinstated have followed. Seamen want the original fireman to go back to the Corio when she recommissions. The engineers want their men reinstated but refuse to let them work with the fireman. Meanwhile, the shipping companies and the Commonwealth Government with its fleet of Australian-built freighters, are standing by watching the rapid spread of the interunion dispute which will immobilise all coastal trade within a month if a settlement is not reached.