AUSTRALIAN WATERSIDERS

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18216, 29 October 1924, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN WATERSIDERS

—.. 1 •■— QUESTION OF WAGES, (bt cxbvk— vnzaa assocutiok—conwa»T) AVD K.B. CA»UB ASSOCUWW) SYDNEY, October 28. Mr Seorlo, of th© Overseas Shipping Representatives' Association, in an interview, said that the Shipping Labour Bureau was established after the waterside strike of 1917 when tb© Waterside Workers' Federation refused to load munition ship* and transports, and tied up work on the waterfront. The bureau was then organised as a mean* of carrying war supplies to the front. It had been maintained sine© as a means of ensuring a reliable source of labour for loading and unloading vefcflela in the Australian trade. Mr Searle said that the union leaders' speeches were misstatements of the facto. The Commonwealth Arbitration Court awarded 2s lOd «ui hour, not 3s an hour for watersidera in causal employ. The Court estimated that casual workers would not average more than 30 hours a week and fixed the rate to cover tbo basic wage of £A. ss. Bureau workers receive £4 lis for a 44-hour week, work or no work. Three men were being lowered down a sewer shaft at Balguwlah (N.8.W.) when the gear collapsed, and they dropped nearly 300 feet. George Lawton was killed, and the two others were seriously injured.