SETTLEMENT AGREED ON

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24903, 17 June 1946, Page 5

SETTLEMENT AGREED ON

Maritime Dispute InU.S. UNIONS CLAIM VICTORY x (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, June 15. The maritime dispute which threatened to stop American shipping, has been settled. All the seven unions involved ratified the settlement at meetings at the principal Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf Coast ports, sending 200,000 seamen and dockers back to work. There were erratic stoppages, but for less than 24 hours when the settlement came too late to prevent a midnight walk out. The Washington correspondent of the “New York Herald-Tribune’’ says a strike threat still exists for the future, as the combined Maritime Unions are planning a 2,000,000 dollar strike fund preparing for action on October 1 to improve terms for West Coast longshoremen and two other maritime unions whose contracts expire then. Mr Harry Bridges and Mr Curran, co-chairmen of the Committee of Maritime Unity, declared that the seven unions had won an unprecedented victory. The agreement provides that unlicensed seagoing personnel, whose basic working week is 56 hours, shall be paid overtime for work in excess of 48 hours at the rate of a dollar Bin hour. AH Sunday work will be paid for at overtime rates.

Wages are increased by 17J dollars a month, retrospective to April 1. A 40-hour week is provided in port with overtime for Saturday and Sunday work. Longshoremen receive an increase of 22 cents an hour, retrospective to October 1, 1945, which is estimated to cost the employers 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 dollars. Mr Frank Taylor chairman of the negotiating committee for the agents of the War Shipping Administration, which operates 80 per cent, of American merchant shipping, said that private operating companies had grave misgivings as to the future of United States shipping. The Treasury could doubtless bear the burden of the new wages and conditions on Government-operated ships, but it remained to be seen how long privately-owned ships could survive the competition under the staggering handicap now imposed on them.