CURBING COMMUNISTS

Chronicle (Levin), 31 December 1949, Page 5

CURBING COMMUNISTS

(N.Z.P.A.-

—Reuter.

Anstrailan Opinion Differs On Best Method

Covyriahti

SYDNEY, Dec. 30. Though 1949 was a year uneqtiaiied in industrial turbulence Since 191?, union authorities see at its end healtliy signs of happier industrial felations for 1950. The main danger at at the moment lies in the diffetence of opinion between the Menzies Government and moderate Labour concer'riirig the methods to be adopted to reduce the power oi the Communist . Party in the trade union movement. Unions claim that the battle agaxxist the Communists is already half woix and that slowly, but surely, the workers themselves are ousting extremists from key positions in their organisations. Organised Labour believes that the pending action by Mr. Menzies and Mr. Fadden to ban the Coinmunlst Party and dismiss its members from the unions and the Publie Serviee will an.tagonise a large section oi working elass opinion now followxxxg moderate lfeaders and will make the work of the moderates even harder. Trade union eleetions over the past few months show that while sufferlng few speetacular defeats, the Oommunist leadership has received a series of important setbacks. When the Com-munist-inspired . winter coai strilce forced Government aetion in midwinter, unprecedentOd legislation was brought down by the Labour Ministry and'a group of miiitant union iead- 1 ers was gaoled for the first time since the Peter Bowling eoaJ strike in 1909. The strike eost more than 1,000,000 tons of eoal and lost the workers £35,000,000 in wages, but as a result the RedS lost their power in the Miners' Federation. . Red control of the Miners ' Federa- 1 tion was not smashed by Government "decree, but in the ensuing union eleetions many miners discarded the extremists in favour of the moderates. lt is not yet certain whether the moderates have gained the upper hahd on the Miner's Central Council, but they are in full control of the poWerful Northern Federation, whose mehibers mine 80 per cent. of Australia's industrial coai. The split in the anti-Communist vote enabled Messrs. J. Healy and E. M. Roaeh to hold their positions as leaders of the Waterside Workers' Federation, but the mafgin was a norrow one. The Newcastle iron workers revolted strongly against Red leadership, and in the eusuing eleetions Mr. E. Thornton retained control of the Federated Ironworkers' Association by the scant mar* gin of 1GG6 votes in 30,000. Rank and file unionists have thu3 dealt a damaging blow to the facade of what was an impressive bloc of Com-munist-dominated unions. Industrial observers believe that those Communist leaders who remain in key union positions will not darc call a general strike in protest against Government aetion for fear of losing control of their unions to an already powerful oppositin, and that with the miners, ironworkers, and watersiders forced to pursue a moderate eourse, any Communist challenge to government authority in 1950 would be doomed to t'ailure.