Leftist bid for high job if Mr Knox wins

Press, 12 April 1979, Page 4

Leftist bid for high job if Mr Knox wins

If Mr W. J. Knox wins the election for presidency of the Federation of Labour and there is more than one nomination for his vacated! position as secretary, a! postal ballot will be held tol find his successor. “Once a vacancy occurs,! and it looks as if there willj be, then immediately after! the conference (in May); nominations will be called| and will close three or four; weeks later,” said Sir Thomas Skinner, the retiring president, from his Auckland home last evening. There is considerable interest in the possibility of an election for secretary because it is widely believed one of the candidates will be

a Communist, Mr K. G.l ’ Douglas, of Wellington. ]: Mr Douglas is secretary of!; the Wellington Trades Coun-li iicil, president of the Drivers’] I Federation, and a member of;! J the F.O.L. executive for two!; terms. He is also a member 1 .] of the Soviet aligned Socialist Unity Party. I Trade-union source say I that the trade unions with i S.U.P. influence will prob- i I ably support the election of Mr Knox to the presidency ; so that they can be sure the I influential position of secre- < tary will be left vacant for Mr Douglas to make his bid. t The election for president i will be by delegates at the 1 annual conference, votes ’ being distributed on the i

I basis of membership, and 'some of the larger unions j getting more than 40 votes leach. The biggest voting | blocks will be the engineers, I hotel workers, shop assistants, clerical workers, and freezing workers. Mr Knox is favoured to win the election front the three other candidates — .'Messrs A. J. Neary, W. R. Cameron, and R. C. Cowley. If Mr Knox wins, nominations for his vacated position will be called after the conference. Nominations will close about three or four weeks after they are called, then the big task of sending out voting papers to affiliated unions will begin.