PREFERENCE TO UNIONISTS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 459, 18 March 1909, Page 4

PREFERENCE TO UNIONISTS.

As might have been expected, Mr. Justice Sim's advice to employers to refuse employment to non-unionists lias moved the Employers' Federation to initiate a campaign of protest. It was inevitable that the real significance of compulsory preference to unionists would find acute expression sooner or later, and that its oppressive character would stand forth in all its nakedness. The question raised by the Judge's dictum resolves itself into this: Is a man to be denied employment unless he becomes a member of a tradesunion, even if he is a competent workman, and desirous of remaining free from any obligation to obey a committee of unionists? The stock reply of the tradesunionist leader is that such benefits as a worker enjoys are duo to tho "self-sacri-fice" of the men who pay their weekly contribution to the union in the trade conccrned. As a matter of fact, the man who refuses to join the union is practically always the man who knows that he is so good a workman that he can dispense with tho union's aid. But, say the unions, the Arbitration Act' was framed •to encourage the formation of tradesunions : it proceeds on the principle that trades-unionism is a good thing—it is necessary, therefore, that every worker shall be made to join a union, or, at any rate, that every worker who refuses to join a union shall be made to pay heavily for his opposition to tho trades-union movement. It is true that the Act was designed to encourage the formation of trades-unions, but it was certainly not designed to force everybody into joining a trades-union. Yet that is what Judge Sim reads the Act as intending, and considers a right and proper thing. We have always admitted the ralue of tradesunionism as affording a stable basis, for the arrangement of industrial conditions, but wo have always held that that basis does not require the ostracism of everybody who is not a trades-unionist. It is enough that the machinery for collective bargaining shall be provided: it is not necessary, and it is highly undesirable, that competent workmen whose merit will always get them employment shall be refused ncognition as industrial units unless they join associations of which they may disapprove, and which they can do without. • To abolish the "preference to unionists" clause would do no injustice to tho legitimate rights of trades-unionism or trades-unionists. Unions would continue to exist and flourish: that is ensured by the restriction to unions of the right to invoke the Act. The only injury that the abolition of compulsory preference to unionists would inflict on anybody would bo injury to the illegitimate aspirations of organised Labour. The public interest requires that there shall not be established a labour Trust, any more than a capitalistic Trust, and it is a labour Trust that waits on the full development of the principle that no man shall earn his bread who is not a member of the labour corporation. Tho objectors to the power sought by the unions aim at the jirotcction of the free workman against

coercion by unionism. As tho Farmers' Union pointed out in 1903, the result of making continuity of employment "merely dependent upon membership of a union, and not, as at present, on a good reputation for work and character, would remove all incentive to efficiency, and must lead to the demoralisation of the worker." The last thing that the unions should desire is the destruction of the efficiency, independence, and self-respect of the workingman, yet this is tho inevitable result of the present trend of events unless a check is applied. It may be worth while quoting the views of some people of the highest authority who have spoken on this question. Let us take Mr. Millar first. Following is an extract from a contemporary report of a deputation which waited on him on September 5, 1907:— Mr. Millar: . . At every conference tho trades councils had been a ring for statutory, unconditional preference to unionists, and well, ho would tell them that no Parliament would give any body of men the right to make rules on any lines they pleased. They would never got preference on any other lino than that given already. Tho door would always bo left open. Parliament, he repeated, would never grant a body of men the power to make rules taking away from any other body of men the right to live. Sir. M'Laren: Is that how you view preference ? The Minister: That is what statutory unconditional preforenco to unionists means. ' This is the dominant point of the whole question: the individual rights of a free workman. Since Mr. M'Laren has referred to the late Mr. Seddon as a leading authority on the question, we may supplement Mr. Millar's view with opinions from authorities infinitely more weighty than Mr. Seddon. Dr. Lyman Abbott says: "If any organisation undertakes to prevent any man from working wlien ho will, for whom ho will, and at what wages ho will, that organisation violates tho essential right of labour. . . . Imagine, for a moment, that any man should propose to place a law on our statute books providing that no man should work in any special industry unless ho belonged to some special guild. Not for ono instant would ho liavo tho support of tho people; not for ono instant would he have tho support of any freo people." Sidney Webb, says: "Any restriction which prevents an employer from fdling all his vacancies as-they occur, by selecting tho most efficient operatives, whenever he can find them . . . lowers tho average of quality amongst the successful competitors. Tho same inlluence deteriorates tho men already in tho trade." Dr. Victor Clark says in his book on "Tho Labour Movement in Australasia": "Tho most important objection to granting preforenco to unionists arises from the organic connection between the unions and the j>olitical labour party. Preference to unionists is preference of employment to members of a political organisation. Under tho sccrot ballot no union can force a man to voto tho Labour ticket, but it can coerce members by effective moral duress to give financial support, to the party and otherwise obey its dictates." The fact- that tho "preference" clause, with all its unjust implications, and its violation of the competent worker's freedom, is so common in awards, is due to the neglect of employers to protest against it when disputes are being heard, The current discussion upon its oppressive character should, strengthen the real friends of industry and the opponents of t class-domination in any movement they may set on foot to forbid' a principle that is opposed alike to the worker's natural liberty and to public policy.