Shipowners Firm

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 360, 22 May 1928, Page 9

Shipowners Firm

CONFERENCE A FAILURE No Compromise Now THE shipping hold-up in Australia shows no signs of ending. A conference between the owners and the Trades Union Council was fruitless. (United P.A. —By Telegraph — Copyright)

Reed. 11.25 a.m. MELBOURNE, To-day. In response to a further request from the Australian and New Zealand Council of Trades Unions for a* conference to discuss the cooks strike the shipowners granted the request. The conference discussed the position for an hour and a-half but nothing in the direction of a settlement was achieved. The owners sttod firmly by the terms already cabled. The Unions’ committees will meet to-day to discuss the outcome of the conference, and decide their next move. Meanwhile, hundreds or men opposed to the strike are idle and helpless. The Trades Union Council is unable to obtain replies to its messages to Mr. J. Tudehope, cooks’ secretary, who is recalcitrant, and has declined to allow his union to be represented at the conference with the shipowners. The deputy-chairman of the Commonwealth Steamship Owners’ Association, Mr. Elford, stated that there was a full and free discussion by the confernce, and tlie shipowners pointed out to the Trades Union representatives that the offer they had made to the cooks lacked nothing they enjoyed under the former award. Mr. Jacob Johnson, secretary of the Australian Seamen’s Union, who has returned to Sydney, declared that the Council of Trades Unions were a lot of bushrangers, who were taking part in a dispute without the cooks’ authority while some Melbourne officials appeared to be willing tools of the shipowners. NO INTERFERENCE SYDNEY, Monday. At the conclusion of a meeting of marine cooks in Sydney to-day the secretary, Mr. J. Tudehope, announced

that it had unanimously reaffirmed the attitude of the union that it would not tolerate the interference of the Australian and New Zealand Council of Trades Unions in the dispute without the consent of the union. The strike position is therefore unchanged. I MARINERS’ AWARD SUSPENSION AS PENALTY EVENT OF STRIKE OR LOCK-OUT (Australian Press Association) Reed. Noon. SYDNEY, Monday. In the Commonwealth Arbitration Court, Judge Dethridge, dealing with the new award for the Merchant Service Guild, said he intended to put in all future awards a clause that in the event of an unreasonable strike or lock-out, the award shall be susper '■'’ed.