SHIPOWNERS BLAMED

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 247, 9 January 1928, Page 9

SHIPOWNERS BLAMED

TROUBLE WITH SEAMEN THAT STOP-WORK MEETING By Cable.—Press Association. — Copyright. Reed. 10.40 a.m. SYDNEY, To-day. Mr. Jacob Johnson, general secretary of the Australian Seamen’s Union, in reply to the shipowners’ statement regarding the seamen’s dispute, says the argument of the union is that the seamen should have been allowed time off without any deduction of pay, to attend the stop-work meeting, because, according to the legislation, Tuesday was a holiday. If the owners had succeeded in forcing the seamen to attend a meeting on a holiday, he continued, they would have been breaking the agreement, which provides that the meeting is to take place in the owners’ time. Furthermore, the owners should not have logged the men in the way they did, but should have referred the dispute to the Conciliation Committee. In logging the men, the owners were merely carrying out the instruction of their association. It was significant that the companies which were not members of the association, including the Commonwealth Line, did not log their men.—A. and N.Z. Another development in the seamen’s dispute is the throwing idle of the Commonwealth Line steamer Canberra and the inter-State liner Ormiston. When calls were made to fill vacancies in the crews of these vessels no men responded, and the companies therefore decided to lay up both these ships. The Commonwealth Line has also decided to lay up the steamer Moreton Bay.—A. and -N.Z.