TIMBER TRADE UPHEAVAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 575, 30 January 1929, Page 11

TIMBER TRADE UPHEAVAL

THREAT IN THREE STATES 30,000 MAY BE IDLE (Australian and N.Z. Press Association) SYDNEY, Tuesday. Mr. Jock Garden, secretary of the Trades and Labour Council, says the timber workers will not work more than 44 hours a week. The men will meet on Thursday evening to discuss their position. A message from Adelaide says timber workers who did not heed the 7.30 a.m. whistle to-day found the doors closed against them when they presented themselves for work half an hour later. The men are now claiming that they have been locked out. An urgent meeting of the Trades Union Council was held at Melbourne to-day as a result of the timber trade employers’ ultimatum to the effect that all employees who disobey the award will be automatically dismissed.

Advice was received from Adelaide and from Sydney that the employers in those cities were taking the offensive. The meeting decided to continue to resist the award, also to try to prevent the employers engaging non-union labour.

Trades Hall officials at Melbourne estimate that at least 18,000 employees at the timber mills in Vctoria, New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and part of Western Australia, will be out of work on Thursday.

The employers estimate that at least 80,000 mill hands, building tradesmen and carters will be rendered idle by the strike.