FOUR BIG AUSTRALIAN UNIONS REBUFF COMMUNISTS

Chronicle (Levin), 12 April 1949, Page 5

FOUR BIG AUSTRALIAN UNIONS REBUFF COMMUNISTS

(N.Z.P.A.-

-Reuter,

Miners' Federation Meets Trouble For Recommending Strike

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Received Tuesday,. 11.10 a.m. SYDNEY, April 12. Following yesterday's decision by the 'ironworkers to return to work today, f our other powerfu} unions rppudiateu Communist attempts to promote short-term strike s in protest against the imprisonment of Mp. L. J. McPhillips, assistant secretary of tjie Federated Ironworkers' Association, for contempt of the Arbitration Court. They were the Metal Trp,des and Federated Australian. Society of Elngineers, the Road' Transport Workers' Union and the Australian Railway Union. The Miners' Federation has already met trouble for its decision to recommend the coalminers to strike.

The Coal Industry Tribunal, Mr. F. Gallagher, has refused to continue hearing the miners5 application for a 35-hour week until all mines resume work, and inoends recommending to the Acting Attor-ney-General, Senator McKenna, that action shoiild be taken against the ofiicers responsible for the stoppage. The general secretary of the Miners5 Federation, Mr. G. W. Grant, told Mr. Gallagher that two men had ordered the strike. He expiained that the central executive of the Miners' Federation consisted of the president, Mr. I. Wiliiams, the president of the southern miners, Mr. W. Parkinson, and s,:f Messrs. Williams and Parkinson issued ihe sirike directive on a majority decision. Tx±ey diu not luiorm Mr. Grant of their action. "I cannot see why the AttorneyGencral cannot take proceedings lor a eonspiraey to obstruct justiee, 5 commented Mr. Gallagher. "Mo?t miners are in my experience a respectable people. Yet they have

apparently allowed ' themselves to become the tools of people trying to use industrial action to trample down the right of the community as exercised by the courts to bring \ wrongdoers to justice.55 1 A new action for contempt of court may arise from a recommendation made to the Chief Conciliation Commissioner, Mr. G. A. Mooney, by the New South Wales Federal Conciliation Comissioners that Mr. Mooney refer to the Federal Industrial Registrar a statement by Mr. T. Wright, Cornmunist secretary of the Sheet Metal Workers5 union. : Mr. Wright is alleged to have said on April 7, at a meeting of the |Trades and Labour Council: "The ' council asked for only one judge to decide the legal points and they got a number of judges They asked for conciliation committees to deal with other matters, but instead they got 15 diluted judges, whose main activity appears to be strike breaking.'5 The Industrial Registrar brought the recent Arbitration Court _ proceedings against Mr. M. Phillips.