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CNS Story:
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WYD-STRIKE (UPDATED) Jul-10-2008 (330 words) xxxi
Railroad workers cancel strike planned for World Youth Day
By Dan McAloon
Catholic News Service
SYDNEY, Australia (CNS) -- Sydney's railroad workers announced that their 24-hour strike for July 17, the day of Pope Benedict XVI's arrival in Sydney for World Youth Day, has been canceled.
The strike was called off July 8, according to media reports.
Jim Hanna, media director for World Youth Day, had said July 7 that organizers were "confident that the parties will resolve their differences through arbitration," and the papal tour through the streets of Sydney "will continue peacefully and uninterrupted."
If the strike by the workers' union over an unresolved pay claim had occurred, it could have stranded up to 750,000 commuters on Sydney's rail network, including hundreds of thousands of pilgrims traveling from the outer suburbs into the city.
To avert what could be transport chaos on the busiest day of the July 15-20 World Youth Day festivities, the New South Wales government had taken the issue to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.
Meanwhile, Hanna said that during the week before the start of World Youth Day organizers had been inundated by "hundreds of walk-in international pilgrims."
Referring to the pilgrim groups "from the United States, Europe and Latin America who had arrived at our office asking to be registered," Hanna said the unregistered batch "haven't shown up in our statistics until now."
Hanna said many of the new arrivals did not want to be part of the whole week's program and were asking for registration of the weekend package that includes the pilgrim walk, vigil and closing Mass.
He said despite media reports of a slow turnout for pilgrim registrations organizers were confident of reaching registrations in excess of 220,000 pilgrims, including 123,000 international ones.
The 40 extra flights into Sydney International Airport scheduled in recent days were a measure of the international demand, he said.
"Our contacts at the airlines are reporting that those flights are filling up fast; they're almost" full, he said.
END
Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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