ECHO OF 1917 STRIKE

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXXIV, Issue 4, 28 October 1924, Page 5

ECHO OF 1917 STRIKE

SHI RIMING LABOR BUREAU.

AN AUSTRALIAN DISPUTE.

Presc Association —Copyright. Sydney, October 28

Mr Searle, of Overseas Shipping Representatives’ Association, in an interview, said the shipping labor bureau was established after the waterside strike of 1917, when the Waterside Workers’ Federation refused to load munition ships and transports, and tied up the work on the waterfront. The bureau was then organised as a means of carrying war supplies to the front, and it has been maintained since as a means of ensuring a reliable source of labor for loading and unloading vessels in the Australian trade.

Mr Searle said that Mr Mill’s and Mr Ellis’s speeches were a. mis-state-ment ot the facts. He said the Commonwealth Arbitration Court, awarded 2/10 per hour, not 3/- per hour, for watersiders in casual employ. The Court estimated that casual workers would not average more than thirty hours per week, and fixed the rate to cover the basic wage of £3 ss. Bureau workers received £4 11s for a forty-four hour week’s work or no work.