The Daily News MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1935. STRIKE OF SEAMEN.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 December 1935, Page 6

The Daily News

MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1935. STRIKE OF SEAMEN.

OFFICES t NEW PLYMOUTH, Currie Street. i STRATFORD, Broadway. HAWERA. High Street.

The extension of the Australian shipping strike is increasing and the prospect of an early settlement of the dispute is not encouraging. The crews of the inter-State coal-carrying steamers have now decided to support the seamen on strike. Their decision is apparently the outcome of loyalty to what they consider are trade union principles, and however much their wrong view is deplored, it is difficult not to feel some admiration for men who are risking their own employment even in wrongful support of those principles without any likelihood of personal gain. The vessels in question are operating under an award made by the New South Wales Industrial Commission, and evidently the new Commonwealth award, against which the Seamen went on strike, has not interfered with the conditions that applied

to the colliers. If they are withdrawn from service the New South Wales coal trade, already suffering from a considerable curtailment of former markets, will receive serious damage. Most of the anthracite coal used in Australia is mined in the Newcastle district, and for many years the State of Victoria has been practically dependent upon Newcastle coal for factory purposes. Of recent years steam power has been challenged in Victoria by the internal combustion engine and the electric motor. The oil-driven plant also depends upon imported fuel, but in regard to electricity the State’s large generating station has made Victoria independent of outside agencies for the supply of current. The tendency to abandon steam for electrical power has already reduced considerably the demand for Newcastle coal, and any interruption in supply is sure to increase that tendency throughout the Commonwealth. Nevertheless sufficient steam plants remain to make an interruption of coal supplies a serious problem, and one likely to increase unemployment. The lack of transport will necessitate a smaller output from the coalmines, thereby increasing an unemployment problem on the coalfields that is already serious enough. It seems deplorable that because of a slight reduction of 2d to 4d per hour in overtime rates, and a modification of hours of duty that has minimised the chances of claiming overtime, the seamen should have stopped work and defied the Arbitration Court. In all other respects they admit that the new Federal award is an improvement on the old one, and provides for a respectable increase in wages, especially for the lower paid ratings among the crews. But had the award been wholly unsatisfactory there still remain'ed the constitutional method of applying to the Court for its amendment. Instead of doing this, the seamen have preferred direct action and thus given fresh ammunition to the opponents of the compulsory arbitration system for dealing with industrial disputes—a system, moreover, that was instituted primarily for the protection of the worker and his dependents from being starved into submission to the terms offered by harsh employers. Opponents of arbitration maintain that awards can be and are defied by the employees with impunity, although the employer who infringes one is brought to book. The. seamen have tried to defy an award. They have done so regardless of the convenience of the public at the most important holiday season of the year, and against the advice of their own union leaders. One of the latter, in urging constitutional methods of seeking an alteration of the award, told the Melbourne seamen that while the Seamen’s Union might fight shipowners with success it could not hope to succeed against a State or the Commonwealth. He feared that public opinion was against such methods, and public opinion, as has been demonstrated in world affairs this week, is a power that even trade unions must respect. Already the seamen on strike have lost more in actual wages than they can hope to gain in many years from the amendments to the award that they are seeking. They have lost also a good deal of public sympathy with any just claims they may have, because of the methods chosen to advance those claims. If they succeed in involving other industries in the dispute public opinion is likely to be even less favourable towards the seamen than it is at present.