BRIDGE OF SIGHS

Southland Times, Issue 20662, 18 April 1929, Page 8

BRIDGE OF SIGHS

SPANNING SYDNEY HARBOUR.

STRIKERS ON THE JOB

Sydney, March 21

Completion of Sydney harbour bridge is fixed officially for 1931, but the belief in the minds of the public is that unless strikers on the job cease from downing tools every now and again the work is not likely to be finished by then. Work on the bridge has once again been resumed, following the latest stoppage for wages which would have meant the tidy sum of £l6 10s a week for boilermakers, and £l5 15s 4d for ironworkers, under a 44-hour week. Peace has been patched up somehow or other, but it will not be at all surprising if, with the concession of every claim, the men on the bridge are not receiving anything up to £5O a week before the job is completed. The public, as usual, or at least that section of it which is specially taxed for what is really a national undertaking, has to foot the bill. The work on the bridge is admittedly hazardous, and the more dangerous the higher the men go, but equally hazardous work is being performed day in and day out on huge city structures in all directions. On one of the arms of the harbour, a few miles from the site of the bridge, is what is known as the Suspension Bridge, with a drop from its towers of about 200 ft to a hard bed. For the hazardous work of building that massive bridge men received about £3 a week. But times have changed.