STRIKING SEAMEN

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18922, 25 January 1936, Page 5

STRIKING SEAMEN

OWNERS' OFFER OF WORK FILLING OP VACANCIES WRANGLE IN UNION RANKS "MISLED" BY OFFICIAL (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.l MELBOURNE, Jan. 24. The shipowners met the Australian Council of Trades Unions and the .seamen in conference to-day to discuss the strike. The owners offered to allow the men to return to fill vacancies under award conditions. Mr Keenan also saw. Mr R. G. Menzies, the Attorney-General, but received no undertaking regarding the Transport Workers Act. Mr Johnson, the deposed secretary, said to-day that the seamen had been misled for the gratification of MiKeen an. "In anticipation of my defeat," he said, "I am now preparing to hand .over to my successor his battered and torn army ,and bankrupt estate. Prom the commencement of the dispute, 1 have done everything to avoid the obvious calamitous results. I have no regrets for my action." A fierce attack was also made by Mr Clarke, the Victorian secretary of the •Seamen',s Union, who is also general president, upon Mr Keenan, in reporting to the Melbourne Trades Hall Council. 'Mr Clarke said that Mr Keenan's tactics had brought the union to ruination. He (Mr Clarke) would not Ibe a fool or tool for any self-seeking opportunist and would never recognise Mr Keenan, who had brought about a state of chaos which had never before existed in any union in Australia.

NO OFFERS OF LABOUR VESSEL AT NEW PLYMOUTH (Per Press Association.) NEW PLYMOUTH, last night. Calls for labour to work cargo on the steamer Gabriella, which arrived at New Plymouth from Brisbane today, were unanswered and the vessel lay idle to-day. The Gabriella is manned by a crew under licence recently granted by the Australian Government.

The Union Company's office said that neither union nor non-union labour w.as available. Another, call will be made to-morrow. An official of the Watersiders' Union made no statement beyond claiming that all union labour was engaged on other ships in port. The Gabriella was scheduled to leave for Wanganui to-morrow;