SHIPPING COMPANIES TROUBLES

Hokitika Guardian, 2 November 1920, Page 3

SHIPPING COMPANIES TROUBLES

BURDEN ON TASMANIAN. INDUSTRY. SYDNEY, October 19. Thg new burdens which almost daily are being placed on industry in this coiurtry by the excessive and unreasonable demands" of labour are well illustrated in the case of the shipping business in Tasmania, where grav e disorganisation is -threatened. The first of the difficulties that have developed lias to do with the wharf labourers. These men are under the rule of the autocratic and arrogant Waterside Workers’ Federation, and this body is enthusiastically quarrelling with the oversea shipping companies. Briefly these companies insist on still recognising the unions of loyalists formed when the 1917 strike was broken. This proceeding gives much offence to the Federation, which demands the abolition of the loyalist labour bureaus, where the companies engage such labour as is from day to day required The companies, of course, refuse to hear the voice of. the Federation, and the Federation is, in consequence, engaged in a deliberate policy of irritation. This policy is being followed in Tasmania, where the wharf labourers now refuse to work on any oversea vessel between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m, The companies have retaliated by announcing that, until this stupid embargo is removed, no oversea ship will call at a Tasmanian port. It may be added that exactly a similar position has developed in Brisbane. This cutting out of oversea ships of course, places a hardship upon business people;,but the shipping companies argue—rightly enough - that the burden must be carried by the community which tolerates a sort of Labour Czardom in its midst. Tasmanian shipping is further embarrassed by a new Arbitration Court, which gives to the skippers and engineers of river craft a- vast increase- in wages. These men, up till now, have bieen receiving about- £5 per week. They are not highly-skilled men. No knowledge of navigation is necessary, and the engines are looked after in the shore shops. The little vessels do not go out of the river channels—they are, in fact, simply small ferry boats. The men qualify as -skippers or engineers on a. slight examination after three years as deck hands or stokers. Their weekly wage has now been increased to £l2 with 5s per hour over-time, of which a certain amount is always necessary. It is reokonel that their yearly earnings will average between £7OO and £BOO. The owners have replied by promptly laying idle a large of the rivers fleet. They say that the industry cannot carry the new burden.