UNION ADVISES RESUMPTION

Southland Times, Issue 25836, 22 November 1945, Page 5

UNION ADVISES RESUMPTION

Newcastle Steel Strike

SYDNEY, November 21. By a unanimous vote, the members of the Australian Workers’ Union decided at a meeting at Newcastle to ask the New South Wales Trades and Labour Council to direct the strikers to resume work at the Broken Hill Proprietary Steelworks on a pre-stoppage. basis. Charges were made at the meeting that the Local Disputes Committee did not want a resumption at present, and that the Communists were using the dispute to advance the interests of their party in a campaign to smash the Trade Union movement.

The main barrier to the resumption of work is the demand by the strikers that the Broken Hill Proprietary should give seniority guarantees before work is

resumed. The Proprietary has so far refused to confer with the Ironworkers Union on the issues involved because the union has been deregistered by the State Industrial Commission.

An important development in the strike yesterday was the issue of dismissal notices to 700 employees of the Stewart and Lloyd Proprietary at Newcastle because there will be no work for them next week, steel supplies having 'been cut off by the Broken Hill strike. At Canberra the Federal Cabinet decided to order the drafting of a Bill to provide a greater use of conciliation in the arbitration system. It is believed that the Cabinet opinion is hardening against direct Government interference with the fixation of the basic wage or weekly hours. Most Ministers believe that for constitutional and other reasons, these matters must be left to the Courts.