Labour Items.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 239, 7 August 1902, Page 3

Labour Items.

Sydnry, August 4.. J A conference of pastoralists and i delegates of the Australian Workers' , Union has opened, and will discuss the dispute relating to shearing rates. August 5. The shearing conference terminated abruptly, and only resulted in accentuating the crisis of the difficulty. The Workers' Union delegates explained that their demand for an increase to 25s per 100 wai based on the grounds of the increased cost of living, of the improvements in the beeds of sheep making them more difficult to shear, and the increased

price of wool and stock. The chairman of the Pastorftlists' Union, in replying, said thai owing to bbe drought not more than 30,000,000 ibeep were alive in Queensland and New South Wales, and certainly not 20,000,000 in both Stat«s fit for shearing. The sheep were not there to shear, and there was not the money in the pastoral industry that there had been in the past. He urged workers delegates that they should direct the men to go to work until the matter was dealt with by the Arbitration Court. His opinion was that there was no other course but for them to go to work at the old rate. He might as well state plainly that if the men were not prepared to hceept £1 per 100 it was no use conferring further. The pantoralists had made up their minds neither to make an advance nor to compromise. .... . lU Mr McDonnell, on behalf of the men, said that they were terribly disappointed, and personally he was afraid that a struggle was imminent, and that it would be a bitter one. He knew that if he put the chairman s ! advice before the men it would b% utterly rejected. _ After the abortive shearing conference the Counoil of the Australian Workers* Union met and decided to fight to a finish for Q2s 6d per 100. A plan of campaign was agreed upon, and the manifesto which will be issued claims that it is practically certain the men will win in a majority of sheds.