FEARS OF CLASH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 May 1938, Page 7

FEARS OF CLASH

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT & WATERSIDERS SYDNEY SHIPPING CIRCLES PERTURBED THE EMBARGO ON METAL EXPORTS SYDNEY, May 17. Shipping circles are perturbed at the probable outcome of a clash between the Federal Government and the Sydney waterside workers. All the wharves here will be idle on May 25 for a stop-work meeting of watersiders to decide their attitude to the Government’s ultimatum. This warning, if carried out, means that every wharf worker in Sydney will be required to take out a licence before he can obtain employment. Sydney unionists so far have escaped the licensing obligation, but the watersiders at Melbourne and Adelaide have been working under it since the last shipping hold-up. More than 3000 tons of scrap metal are lying on the Port Adelaide wharves because of the refusal of the watersiders to load for Japan. An earlier cablegram stated that the Sydney waterside workers who refused to load scrap iron and other material for Japan had been warned by the Federal Ministry that unless they agreed by May 25 to load all cargoes which were offering the licensing provisions of the Transport Workers’ Act would be applied to the Sydney members of the Waterside Workers’ Federation, and disciplinary action taken at other ports. In a letter to the. federation, the Prime Minister, Mr J. A. Lyons, stated that the Government takes the view that no sufficient reason exists for the imposition of an embargo on the exports in question. The Sydney waterside workers recently rejected the appeal of the Acting Federal Attorney-General, Senator McLachlan, to remove their ban on the loading of tin clippings for export, and reaffirmed their decision to refuse to load any tin clippings for Japan or Germany.