RAILWAY MEN NOW WANT NEGOTIATIONS

Grey River Argus, 1 April 1948, Page 5

RAILWAY MEN NOW WANT NEGOTIATIONS

QUEENSLAND STRIKE MAY SOON END DESPITE COMMUNISTS (Received March 31, 11.5 p.m.) BRISBANE, March 31. There was a mass meeting of railwaymen in Rockhampton today. The meeting decided to recommend the Central Disputes upon negotiations with the PreCommittee at Brisbane to enter for a settlement of the railway mier of Queensland, Mr. Hanlon, strike, which is now nine weeks old. \ This development is one at Central Queensland’s Key railway centre. It follows return-to-work votes by the railwaymen in a number of the minor centres during the past fortnight. xn contrast with the railwaymen, a mass meeting of Brisbane wateisiders to-day deciaed to remain on strike until the Government repeals the antistrike legislation. Several union officials forecast that the Queensland railway strike, now in its fifty-ninth day. will, end this week and that all railwaymen will be back at work on Monday. Yesterday 506 trains rain In Queensland. The chairman of the Central Disputes Committee, Mr O’Brien, says that the railwaymen will hold mass meetings throughout- Queensland on Friday, Goods are now moving freely by road between New South Wales and Queensland. WATERSIDERS’ AND SEAMEN’S STRIKE Fifteen ships are unloading over 15,000 tons of cargo in Sydney, which was originally intended for Queensland. Queensland ports have all been idle since the watersiders and seamen joined the railwaymen’s strike on March 1, The Sydney shipowners have proposed that the Stevedoring Industry Commission should order the Queensland watersiders to return or call for individual volunteers among members of the Waterside Workers’ Federation.

The Queensland shipowners have also demanded that the men be ordered back to work on pain of losing privileges The Federal executive of the Watersider Workers’ Federation has decided to extend the Queensland port strike if any attempt is made to employ volunteer labour. ENGINEERING UNION SPLIT The Amalgamated Engineering Union in Queensland is now split into two major blocks on the issue of continuing the strike. The North Queensland and Central Queensland branches wish to resume work on the basis of a marginal weekly wage increase of 12s 4d. The other block, centring on Ipswich and Townsville, favours continuing the strike. A bitter struggle between the Communists and moderates in the Amalgamated Engineering Union is expected to reach a decision at a delegates’ meeting of the union ordered in Brisbane to-day by the Federal Council. The chairman of the Federal Council, Mr J. Cranwell. will fly from Sydney to deputise for Mr E. J. Rowe, the Communist strike leader, who is still hiding from the police over the charge of destruction of strike ballot papers. The union leaders refuse to comment on a report published in the Sydney Communist newspaper, the Tribune, that it believed that Mr Cranwell had warned' the authorities that they risked the loss of one day’s production in all States for every day Mr E. J. Rowe (who is- a leading member of the Communist Party), was kept in a Queensland gaol. It is understood that the rank and file of union members are unlikely to accept this Communist proposal.