STOPPAGES OF WORK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 226, 23 September 1940, Page 6

STOPPAGES OF WORK.

A new technique of strike settlement is developing in the Dominion. However trivial the cause, and most of the hold-ups which have occurred have arisen from the flimsiest pretexts, a committee or a commission is set up under Ministerial authority, the strikers are very politely asked to be good little boys, their complaints are then heard, they are given a dose of soothing syrup by the granting of some demands, and then they are told that they must not again sabotage the war effort or put a sprag through the wheels of industry. Then they go back to work again, until they or some other section feel like slacking, and the whole process begins all over again. The latest example of the utter futility of this way of dealing with industrial trouble comes from the Waikato district. The miners struck and lost the Dominion six thousand tons of badly needed coal and themselves £2000 in wages, in the course of a dispute arising from the payment of wet pay for one miner. Instead of using constitutional methods the men's leaders preferred to follow methods of dislocation which have proved effective in other instances, and to flout the law, secure in the belief that they could do it safely. They were condemned by the National Disputes Committee, which chastised them for a highly reprehensible course. This public rebuke may help to check what appears to be a Rowing tendency to hamper and hinder the Empire's war effort. The regulations checking the irresponsible strike leader carry plenty of power, but they can only be. enforced by the Government. It is] apparently asking too much to suggest) that the Government should act' with firmness in administering itsj own regulations in order to check damaging interference in industry from unworthy causes. |