Pacific Unions Talk On Boycott
p. 12 · Read in the full issue
Leaders of South Pacific trade unions met towards the end of March in Noumea and issued a policy statement on possible boycott action over this year’s French nuclear tests.
Those present were Mr Bob Hawke, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), Mr Jack Egerton, member of the ACTU executive committee, Mr Apisai Tora, President of the Fiji Trade Union Federation and Mr Charles Taufa, President of the Federation of Polynesian Trade Unions.
In their joint communique signed at the Chateau Royal hotel, the delegates noted that any regional boycotts could have harmful effects on workers in the countries concerned.
They agreed to recommend strongly to labour organisations that any boy cott in 1974 or later should be car ried out in such a way as to affect metropolitan France directly and not the South Pacific Islands.
New Caledonia’s major labour federation, USOENC, was not party to this agreement and later issued its own communique which supported the main terms stated by Australia, Fiji and Tahiti. In addition the USOENC underlined the wasteful nature of the tests, particularly amid the current energy crisis and in flation. The Caledonians even sug gested there was a risk that the French nuclear force, like the Con corde plane, would not finally be achieved.