INDUSTRIAL UNREST.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 83, 3 December 1912, Page 3

INDUSTRIAL UNREST.

RAILWAY MEN DISSATISFIED. (By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (United Press Association.) London, December 3. Mr Warkden, secretary of the Railway Clerks’ Union, states that the compa-ues have notified the Goveimment that unless legislation is introduced during tec present session to enable an ;iu raaso in rates they would withdraw the concessions granted through the strike, and leave the Government to face a national railway strike.

Mr Williams, secretary of the Railway Servants’ Union, speaking at Manchester, said that the Midland Railway Company was victimising the men concerned in the strike. If the company did not stop, the unions would be compelled to take action.

TROUBLE IN TIMARU. Timaru, December 2. The Federationist Waterside Union some days ago threatened to strike if two men were employed by the railways on the wharf who are members of the Railway Servants’ Society, and who have withdrawn from the Waterside Union, To-day two steamers, the Kittawa, partly unloaded of timber, and the Corinna arrived for cargo, and were to doe worked. Four gangs turned up. / When Scott, the crane driver, appeared the gangs knocked off. The second railway man did not appear, being unwell. Both steamers wen away. The captain of the Kittawa said that he would land the balance of the Timaru timber at Lyttelton, but Mr R. Gould, the Union secretary, states that he wired to the Lyttelton watersiders that the Timaru cargo was not to be handled there. In explanation of the union’s practical “protest,” he said that the two railway men concerned had benefited more through the union’s action than any other men on the wharves. He put it at £6O a year.. Y r et they refused to pay a paltry few pence a week to remain members of the union. The union wished shipping people to observe the preference clause of their agreement, and had merely knocked off work to compel compliance with it. They did not consider it a strike, but only a protest. Scott, seen on the subject, said that he had been a member of the Railway Society for eight years, and did not see why he should be a member of two unions. He was employed by the Railway Department, and not by the shipping people, and there was no need for him to have anything to do with the Waterside Union. He denied Gold’s statement that the railway men had been benefited by the union. They asked for an increase and got it before they joined the union. As railwaymen they were not bound by the watersidors’ agreement. Besides the Kittawa and Corinna, the s.s. Kaiapoi was to have come here with 1000 tons of coal, but she will now discharge at Wellington, and it ie understood that other vessels about due will bo ordered not to,call. It is understood that the union have acted without waiting or asking for the approval of the Federation executive, and will explain to the executive. Shipping people seen consider the proceedings of the union ridiculous, and that they will have no public sympathy whatever.