The Sun. MONDAY, MAY 7, 1928. MORE TROUBLE WITH SHIPPING

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 347, 7 May 1928, Page 10

The Sun. MONDAY, MAY 7, 1928. MORE TROUBLE WITH SHIPPING

rfYNOE again Australian shipping is threatened with paralysis by the reckless behaviour of employees. Though the crews which man ships sailing under Australian articles are the best paid and, generally speaking, best accommodated of any on the Seven Seas, they are apparently quite incapable of satisfaction, and the holding up of ships as the result of their whims has become a common thing. When it is not the seamen, it is the firemen; when it is not the firemen, it is the seamen; when these sections pause in their militancy, it is the stewards or the cooks who flourish the bludgeon. -The genesis of the latest dispute is typical. The galleys of all the Huddart-Parker steamships have been boycotted by the. Marine Cooks’ Union, because the company would not comply with the demand to employ two extra cooks on one of its vessels. This glaring example of attempted job control, which compels the public to ask who really owns the ships—the shipping company or the cooks—now threatens to bring about a total cessation of tho Australian coastal trade. Indeed, a strike which will mean a general hold-up of ships is considered inevitable. Briefly, the position is that the Cooks’ Union, having by the action of its members incurred the just displeasure of the Arbitration Court, is now non-existent in law. In other words, it has been deregistered by Mr. Justice Dethridge, wlio said he was compelled to take this legal action because of the illegal action of the union. Arbitration was ignored by the union. It had the opportunity of having its claims dealt with by the Court, which, as the learned judge pointed out, had formed no opinions as to the merits or demerits of its claims. But the union did not seek to obtain its claims at the hands of justice; it tried to force them from the shipowners by the bullying method of job control. With the deregistration of the union and the consequent suspension of the award, the owners may now lawfully employ non-union cooks on its own terms on all their vessels on the coast and on some engaged in the New Zealand run. Naturally enough, the owners say they will be compelled to repudiate the Cooks’ Union in future, otherwise demands similar to those made upon the Huddart-Parker Company will be made upon all the inter-State companies. In union circles it is believed an attempt will be made to man the Ulimaroa, which it is desired to dispatch for Auckland next week, with non-union cooks, and it is sufficiently indicated that if this attempt is made the other marine unions will go on strike. .

The action of the cooks has so far lost them £70,000 in wages. That is their own fault. Worse than this is the fact that a much greater loss has been sustained by hundreds of other men thrown out of employment by the action of the cooks, and the loss to the shipowners and to trade generally. If the cooks fail to come to reason and the owners are compelled to seek non-union labour, another struggle is imminent. Tired of the incessant irritations to which they have been subjected for years past by the men who man their ships, the owners may be depended upon fully to maintain their rights. The issue should be made a decisive one, so that a period of peaceful working may be ensured hereafter. A lesson on the criminal folly of job control is long overdue.