STRIKE FEVER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 265, 9 November 1936, Page 7

STRIKE FEVER

SPREAD IN AMERICA t STEEL WORKERS JOIN IN I SHIPS LEAVE UNDER POLICE GUARD GENERAL HOLD-UP URGED Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) Received Nov. 8, 7.35 p.m. NEW YORK, Nov. 7. Six thousand Bethlehem steel, dry dock and shipyard workers in San Francisco Bay area announced that they would strike this morning. The strike is connected with the marine tie-up. A mass meeting of rank and file empowered the strike committee to call a general shipping strike. The committee voted the strike effective as from midnight and began formulating demands to submit to the shipowners for parity morning conditions on the Atlantic, the Gulf and the West Coast. However, the liner Santa Barbara departed for South America at midnight guarded by 75 policemen and a police launch. The liner American Legion, bearing Messrs. Hull and Welles to South America, cast off with a union crew and police guard despite strikers’ pickets, but halted at the Statue of Liberty awaiting six complementary members of the crew. She departed late in the evening. Five other large vessels with union crews departed during the day. Tension between the International Seamen’s Union and the strike committee is still at the highest pitch. Mr. Curran said that seven thousand were striking, of whom 6000 were registered. The west coast situation continues to be quiet, apparently both sides awaiting Washington developments. Mr. continues to be active behind the scenes, though outwardly uncommunicative. He attends most committee meetings, principally concerning the victualling and policing of the strike on army lines. The unions are said to have four warehouses of food.