STRIKE SETTLEMENT HINDERED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 301, 21 December 1945, Page 5

STRIKE SETTLEMENT HINDERED

PRESS REPORT MISLEADING COMMENT BY CHAIRMAN OF N.S.W. COMMISSION. Recd. 9.50 p.m. Sydney. Dec. 20. When the State Industrial sion met to-day to give further consideration to an appeal by D. Parker, the pres.dent, Mr. Justice Taylor, referred lo the publication of a report that .suggestions were made privately by the Commission yesterday to end the steel works strike. Mr. Justice Taylor said: “Publication by the Press of conference discussions has seriously embarrassed the Commission in this matter, and has rendered very remote the prospects of conciliation between the parties. It is obvious that if such matters are disclosed to the Press the functions of the Commission in conciliation will be gravely hampered in the future. The statement which has been published is misleading. It is not a fair or accurate account of what transpired, and we deplore its publication.”

The case is one in which Parker, the Ironworkers’ Association shop delegate, whose dismissal from lhe Australian Iron and Steel Works caused the strike, is appealing to be reinstated in his old job. It was reported in the Press to-day that the Commission had made 'suggestions privately to the Broken Hill Proprietary and the Ironworkers’ Union to end the steel works strike. The union representatives were stated to have agreed to the proposed terms. B.H.P. was to give its reply when the Commission reassembled. The settlement of the strike would open the way for tens of thousands of metal trade workers who have lost their jobs because of the shortage of steel to return to work. The steel strike began at the Australian Iron and Steel Works at Port Kembla on September 23. About 6000 steel workers at Port Kembla and 7000 at Newcastle are on strike. The Commission yesterday suggested that Parker should be reinstated in his old job. The striking steel workers have declared they will not return to work until Parker is reinstated. The Commission also said that if Parker was reinstated and the strikers returned to work it would determine early next year the questions of seniority involved in Parker’s dismissal and the other seniority issues between the union and the Broken Hill Proprietary. Parker was dismissed because he refused to cease work as a valve man and work as a lid man. He appealed against the dismissal to Mr. Justice Cantor of the Industrial Commission, but the Judge dismissed his appeal. Yesterday, in conformity with the terms of the Australasian Council of Trade Unions for settling the steel strike. Parker appealed against Mr. Justice Cantor's decision to the full bench of the Industrial Commission.

Ironworkers’ Association officials said last night that they would accept tsese terms, and they felt a mass meeting of the striking steel workers also would accept them.