SYDNEY SEAMEN

Southland Times, Issue 22767, 18 December 1935, Page 5

SYDNEY SEAMEN

STRIKE TO CONTINUE COMMITTEE EMPOWERED TO NEGOTIATE ' NEW ZEALANDERS AT MEETING (United ■ Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) (Rec. 8.40 p.m.) Sydney, December 17. Over 2000 seamen at a mass meeting to-day unanimously decided to continue the strike until their demands were met. It was also resolved to empower the Strike Committee, the leader of which is Mr J. Keenan, to conduct a conference with the shipowners in order to try to reach an agreement which will overcome the objections to the existing award. The meeting decided not to involve inter-State vessels at present owing to the risk of volunteers filling their places. The crews of these vessels, however, have undertaken to pay 2/6 in the pound out of their wages towards the strike fund. Delegates from New Zealand at the meeting announced that they would report favourably on the strike position when they returned to the Dominion, and if the dispute was not over in a fortnight the New Zealand Union would consider calling a sympathy strike on all ships registered at New Zealand ports. The secretary of the Australian Council of Trades’ Unions, Mr Crofts, to-day forwarded a request to the At-torney-General, Mi R. G. Menzies, for a speedy conference to discuss the repeal of the seamen’s licensing regulations. In reply Mr Menzies said he would confer with him on Thursday. More than 300 seamen and 2000 kindred unionists at all ports are already affected by the strike. Five volunteer seamen were attacked by a mob of men near the Sydney wharves to-day. A brisk fight ensued, in which the volunteers held their own and emerged declaring that they had given their assailants, who fled at the sight of the police, as much as they had received.