STRIKE TO STOP

Taranaki Daily News, 19 July 1934, Page 5

STRIKE TO STOP

ARBITRATION ACCEPTED PRESIDENT’S INTERVENTION TERMS MADE BY STRIKERS SAN FRANCISCO MORE QUIET OUTCOME STILL UNCERTAIN By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 9.15 p.m. San Francisco, July 3.7. A communication from the San Francisco strike committee indicated the acceptance of ..'•bitration contingent on the intervention of President Roosevelt. A formal motion was adopted urging the Governors of Pacific coast States and th? Mayors of the principal cities involved to request President Roosevelt to authorise arbitration on all questions involved in the dispute by the National Longshoremen’s Board and agreeing that all parties would accept the board’s decision. It was announced that the general strike committee voted by 207 votes to 180 .’.n favour of urging all waterfront employees to submit their grievances to arbitration. However, Mr. Bridges, leader of the radical groups, declared that the vote did not represent the true spirit of the strikers. Although shipping employers have agreed to arbitrate, the outcome of the general strike is uncertain, as it is problematical if the rank and file of the workers will accept the committee’s recommendations. The San Francisco City Council has sent a radio message to President Roosevelt inviting him to visit the city as soon as possible to investigate the position for himself. Late this afternoon the police, assisted by a number of citizens, who called themselves vigilantes, started a series of spectacular raids of Communist and other radical labour headquarters. They invaded the editorial offices of the Western Worker, Communist organ, wrecked the establishment and thrashed the occupants. About 300 radicals were rounded up and held on a technical charge of vagrancy. BITTER FIGHT AMONG UNIONS. There is an indication that the unions’ ranks are in the midst of a bitter organisation fight between conservatives and radicals. According to reports the conservatives are anxics to terminate the general strike, and the longshoremen s strike as well, by agreeing to arbitrate. They fear the public will become estranged and may turn against organised labour and possibly even restore the status of the city to tl_at of the “open shop.” Though the general strike tension was relaxed to-day an additional 40,000 workers, crews of the quay system of ferry boats and trains, swelled the strikers to more than 100,000. Meanwhile additional troops were placed at strategic points and heavilyguarded motor trucks began moving .foodstuffs to San rFancisco. Oakland municipal street cars operated unmolested. The general strike spread across the bay to Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda to-day, 27,000 unionists voting to join the 100,000 men already out. Nine thousand National Guardsmen reinforced San Francisco’s police and there was no resumption of yesterday’s violence. The strikers relaxed their grip on the city to permit the partial Resumption of tram services and the movements of food in limited quantities. The ferry boat service between the cities across the bay and San Francisco was disrupted, keeping 500,000 persons of the metropolitan area’s total of 1,300,000 from their work and businesses here. San Francisco spent an uncomfortable but reasonably quiet night. Such services as water and telephone remain normal, but hot water and other comforts of highly-mechanised society were available only an a much reduced scale, since such materials as coal, fuel oil, etc., are running low. Bread, milk and ice deliveries continued fairly uninterruptedly. STRIKERS KEEP THEIR WORD. The San Francisco County Medical Society stated that the strikers had kept their.word in assuring all necessary foods, fuel and medical supplies for hospitals, orplianages and . other similar institutions. ' Physicians and nurses having proper dards were assured of sufficient petrol supplies, although thieves had been syphoning petrol from doctors’ cars’while parked in front of hospitals, offices and the homes of patients. More effective than the actual stoppage of work due to the strike was the physchological effect of the fear that food and other necessary supplies would not be available. It is conceded that over £2,000,000 worth of food and other essential supplies was available in warehouses within the city limits, and there was more than ample. Troops convoy food to the necessary distribution centres, yet rumours of a food shortage continue to i.e circulated. Actually the city has suffered more from the fear of suffering than from the veritable lack of food. Strike news is taboo in Chile, where the Government has notified Santiago newspapers that they will be prosecuted if they make further mention of San Francisco troubles. Fifty-one restaurants were open under union sanction to-day, but nearly 2000 others remained closed, and the food situation is reported to be acute in places. It is safe to say that the great majority of San Francisco citizens have little or no idea of the causes of the longshoremen’s strike which precipitated the present difficulties. A careful study indicates, however, that the dispute which has flared into warfare has been of 14 years’ standing, from the time when it was alleged that the shipping lines compelled the longshoremen to belong to company unions. The N.R.A. code with its provision for representation of labour outside the company unions is said to have given the longshoremen the impetus to strike, not only for higher wages and better working conditions, but also for “labour solidarity” with other maritime unions and the Central Labour Council. The Industrial Association of San Francisco, representing the great majority of the employers, is determined at all costs to maintain freedom against picketing and the right of employment of nonunion labour.