The Dominion. MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 1911. MERCHANTS ASSISTANTS' UNION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1217, 28 August 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 1911. MERCHANTS ASSISTANTS' UNION.

4 The publicity which has been given to the protests against the formation of a trades union of merchants' assistants should afford a very interesting insight into the methods pursued in connection with such matters. No one nowadays is likely to take any serious exception to the formation of trades unions. They have come to bo regarded as a part of our industrial life, and where they arc called for and when their affairs arc conducted 011 reasonable lines they serve a useful purpose not only to those belonging to them, but to the employers as well. It is a much more satisfactory thing for employers who are competing against one another in trades and industries to have a settled understanding with an organised and responsible body of employees than for such employers to have to deal with a numerous body of employees individually. There are advantages to both sides in being able to deal with one another through their organisations. JJut to secure a satisfactory understanding there must be a sweet reasonableness displayed on the part of'both employers and employees and a proper recognition of the fact that' in all really vital respects the interests of the parties are common —that it is to their mutual advantage to work together to make the particular trade or business in which they are engaged a success. There is another thing that has to be considered in forming a trades union, and that is the community of interest amongst the members proposed to be embraced by the rules of the union. Unless the members have some common bond of interest there is bound to be dissension sooner or later. Yet another point to be considered is the question of whether or not it is possible to apply some reasonable test of the standard of efficiency required in any given occupation beforo 'a "worker" can bo classed as efficient. The Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, however, is so _ very wide in its scope that practically any body of workers can register as a trades union and claim an award.

In connection with the Merchants' Assistants' Union, which is causing such a ferment at the present time, it is not at all surprising that strong protest should be made by so many employees against its formation. It is quite possible, as claimcd by the promoters of the union, that there arc a number of under-paid juniors amongst the assistants engaged in wholesale houses in Wellington and elsewhere. No reasonable person would wish to see continued such a state of things as is alleged to existin respect of these juniors. A remedy should be found. But tho trouble in tho present case appears to be that in finding a remedy for the real or fanciful grievances of a section of the employees, a still more serious ground of-grievance is being crcated for the remainder. A very largo number—the majority of the merchants' assistants it i£ claimed— hold the opinion that their position and standing will bo prejudiced by the formation of the union and they object to being dragged into the union at the heels ol their discontented fellow-workers. At the present timo they rcccive ccrtain consideration and certain privileges at the hands of their employers to which they attach considerable \'alue. Their relations arc, on £TTe whole, satisfactory, and there is a give-and-take in slack and busy times which has led to the development of a spirit of harmonious understanding which they feel is not likely to continue under the hard and fast rules laid down by trades union awards and which are the bedrock of trades unionist principles. Moreover, they know, as everyone knows more or less, that trades unionism means a levelling up of inferiority and a levelling down of the competent. They are aware that in their business as salesmen, for instance, one man may hold exactly the same position as another, but because of his particular gifts as a salesman the one may be worth twice the money to his employer that his equally willing but less gifted fel-low-workcr is worth. It is impossible on the merits to place the two men on tho same footing in the matLer of wages; but in such cases under an award of the Court, the minimum wage which usually means tho maximum wage- would be paid to both men and the incentive of the good salesman to utilise his_ special qualities to the best of his ability would be checked. It is because of these and other considerations of a sirai-

lar kind that so many of the merchants' assistants, while recognising that'there may be room for improvement in certain directions, resent very bitterly the action taken to form a union and to thus force them and all other employees to be bound by any award it may sccurc. They feel, and with reason, that the step means a retrograde movement for every employee of any standing as well as for those who have confidence in their own ability and who are prepared to figlit their own battles on their own merits. Some exception has been taken to the registration of the union on the ground that it embraces so many different branches of business, having little or nothing in common. The actual list of businesses affected, taken from a copy of the rules of the union, is as follows: — Employees in hardware, soft goods, druip, stationery, office, lighting and cycle appliance, boot, coal, leather, grindery, cement, seed, v.ino and spirit, oil, (lias?, watchmakers and jeu'ellers, fancy goods, dairy produce, aerated water, fruit and confectionery establishments, and wholesale grocery. The whole of the employees (with the exception of drivers and manual or clerical workers) in wholesale houses engaged in the above lines of business are grouped under the one union. We do not pretend to know very much about the internal working of warehouses of different kinds, but the extraordinary assortment set out above certainly appears to contain quite a number of incongruous elements, having very few, if any, interests in common. Strong protests against inclusion have already been made by employees connected with some of the businesses enumerated, and the Court will probably be called on to clecidc the matter. The law provides that any seven employees in any trade or industry can form a union of workers, which means that it only requires seven discontented persons in any lino of business to cause an incalculable amount of trouble to their fellow employees should they so desire. In the present case, of course, a good many more than the required seven appear to have been at work, a proportion of whom have no doubt been attracted by the glowing pictures painted of the benefits they will derive under trades unionism. One of the statements made by the unionist deputation to the Minister for Labour in order to win his sympathy was to the cffect that employees of the wholesale houses'were being coerced by their employers into signing a petition protesting against the union Very strong and very positive statements were made on this point. It was even said that employees had to choose_ between signing a petition or losing their bread and butter. Such a state of things is incredible. We cannot believe it for a single moment. The deputation did not offer any evidence in support of the statementit was even admitted by one speaker that the statement conccrning intimidation could not be proved. Yet it was made, and made in public. It is only to be assumed that the aspersions cast on the principals connected with the wholesale houses were made with the object of prejudicing them in the eyes of the public, and in order to stir up a spirit of hostility. Such behaviour must be taken as a sign of weakness on the part of those behind the union. If they have to bolster up their case for a union with such material as this, it must indeed bo a poor case.