STRIKE IN SYDNEY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 March 1943, Page 3

STRIKE IN SYDNEY

WATERSIDERS OPPOSE GANG SYSTEM IN OPERATION AT OTHER PORTS SOLDIERS TO WORK SHIPS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) SYDNEY, March 30. Army personnel will be used to work ships in Sydney where for the second successive day they have been without labour to handle their cargoes. An announcement to this effect has been made by the Prime Minister, Mr. Curtin. The rank and file of the Sydney Waterside Workers’ Union have refused to work under the gang system drawn up by the Stevedoring Industry Commission and approved by the employers’ and employees' representatives on the commission. The system which is already in operation at other Australian ports, requires watersiders to form gangs of up to 20 men to work when and as the commission directs. Under the old system, watersiders were free to choose when they would offer for work and employers could accept the men they wished. The union leaders are supporting the commission in its attitude that the men should accept work under the new system. Ships carrying important cargoes have been held up. Wharf labourers numbering more than 4000 decided at a meeting today to send a deputation to the Federal Ministers appealing against the gang system. They also decided to offer for work under the old system. “No one is a patriot who puts his own rights and privileges before his duty to his country,” declares the Sydney “Sun” today, commenting editorially on the holdup. “A ship held up at the wharf is as much out of the war as if sunk by a submarine. Yet we have workers deliberately narrowing the ■ shipping bottleneck because they refuse to try out a method long since accepted in other Australian ports.”