CONTRIBUTION TO PARTY FUNDS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22507, 15 September 1938, Page 12

CONTRIBUTION TO PARTY FUNDS

Reported Compulsion Denied LYTTELTON WATERSIDERS* UNION [From Our Parliamentary Reporter.] WELLINGTON, September 14. A denial that there was any compulsion on members of the Lyttelton Watersiders’ Union to contribute either to the funds of the Labour Party or to the party’s official newspaper was given by the Minister for Labour (the Hon. H. T. Armstrong) in the House of Representatives this afternoon in answer to a question from Mr S. G. Holland (National, Christchurch North).

“I am informed by the New Zealand Waterside Workers’ Union that there is no compulsory levy on its members of £1 a member for shares in a newspaper, or for a political party fund, that any such payments have been made voluntarily by members of the union throughout New Zealand, and that no restrictions have been imposed on the employment of any member at Lyttelton who has not made such payments,' said the Minister. “My department advises that the union is legally entitled, under its registered rules, to demand payment of an entrance fee of 5s and an annual subscription of £2 12s, a total of £2 17s. “The Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, 1925, requires that any society of workers or employers shall lodge with its application for registration two copies of the proposed rules of the society. The rules are required to specify the purposes for which the society is formed and to include certain statutoiy provisions. The registrar of industrial unions is authorised to register the rules if they satisfy the requirements laid down. Thereafter it rests with the union members themselves to ensure that meetings of the union are conducted in accordance with the rules, and the Department of Labour. has no authority to inquire into such matters. “A question as to whether an official of the union- has complied with the registered rules in the conduct of elections is a matter lor determination by a court of law in the same manner as when inegularities are alleged in a local body or general election. My department has been informed, however, that no complaint regarding the recent election of officers of the union lias been made to its executive. For the reasons stated above, the department has no power to intervene in the domestic affairs of a union of either workers or employers, and in this respect the law is the same as under previous administrations.”