The Dominion. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1911.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1320, 26 December 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1911.

A THREATENED TRAMWAYS STRIKE.

The citizens of Wellington will rfcad with indignation this morning that the sequel to the lamentable action of the City Council respecting Inspector Fuller is a determination by the Tramwaymen's Union to go on strike at the end of this week unless its demands are complied with. At Friday's meeting of the City Council, Councillor Skihtcmffe raised the question of the Inspector's position, but the Mayor declared himself unable to givo any informa- ■• tion and at the same time declined to . admit any responsibility for the • carrying.out of the resolution of surrender to the employees which was carried on his casting vote. All that was made clear was that the Inspector had not then, as ii matter of fact; been removed from his position. _ It now appears that the. men, finding that the Council had not instantly dismissed Mr. Fuller, decided lu make another and larger test of thnir ability to use the politicians on the Council to place the city at. the mercy o.f the Tramwaymen's Union. The demand is, nofc merely that lIR. Fuller shall lie removed from 1"h position as Inspector, but thai. In: ! shall bo removed from tin? tramway ■ servicfi altogether. Failing Mir grants ing of their demand, they will ko on • strike r At 1.-hc present stago there arc Uo j or three, tbirjcs that. iniut bn f.t-rongl.v 1 Lnskted U£oa. The fust u that ao

means must be. neglected through which a, safe and honourable settlement o[ tho trouble may be secured— a Kettfcnii'ut that will see justice done and which at the same time will give the trurmvayniuii no reason to tinppose that the public can be coerced by any sort of union. The second point to be stressed is the fact that, so far as tho public is aware, there is nothing to justify the demand that I>:st>ectos. Fuller shall be interfered vath. AJI that he did, ko far as the public lias been permitted to know the farts, was to carry out his plain and simple duty of merely reporting waat looked like a clear irregularity Ui respect of the issue of a, certain ticket. If >m Inspector is not allowed to do this, he has no reason for existence as an Inspector. That is what he is employed for. If there is anything which has not been made public—and it is difficult, in view of Mit. Richardson's report, to believe there is—to support the complaint of the tramwaymen, then this should have been brought forward aud made known.'The third point to which the public must give attention is the fact that the union's present attitude is entirely due to the vote-seeking politicians on the Council who treated tho^ city's interests so lightly in their desire to obtain a sort of cheap popularity with what they fancy is a useful body of voters. Had Councillors stood firmly by their duty to the city —a duty that was made very easy for them by tho report of the Tramways Manager—the union would uot have taken up its present attitude. The citizens will see in the incident a lesson as to the sort of men to be excluded from the Council. Wo trustthat it may be possible for the Council to come to some agreement with the men without imperilling the city's highest interests. In most of the strikes, in most countries, in which the trouble has had a personal origin, the grievance of the strikers has been the dismissal or other punishment of an employee. In the present case we have an exactly opposite situation. There is always something, often a very great deal, to bo said for men who feel, even wrongly, that one of their number has been treated with injustice. In such cases the men are at any rate acting in what they declare, often quite honestly, to be the interests of their class; but the attack upon Inspector Fuller appears to be a different thing altogether. The men object to him, and object to him in a way that the Manager declares will mean the ending of all usefulness in the Inspectors generally. If it docs not wish to begin by ranging the citizens solidly against it, the union will liayc to show that it docs not aim 'at ending the inspectorship system nor at bringing the tramways management into subjection to the employees. The union has made a serious blunder-already in precipitating matters. Nothing woukl have been easier—and certainly this would have bten the minimum of propriety— than to await the final decision of the authorities as to the Inspector's position. The men, lio\ve\er, appear to have decided that the holidays would make "rush' , tactics peculiarly advantageous to them. The Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Aqt Amendment Act makes special provision against .such tactics. Section 0 of the Act sets out that if any person employed in any of certain specified industries strikes without giving his employer not less than fourteen days' , notice in writing nf his intention, to strike, or strikes before, the expiry of any notice so given, the siriki;r._ shall be liable on summary ennvjtiion to a fine not 'exceeding twenty-five pounds. Any person inciting, aiding or assisting a ntri!ccr under this section becomes liable to >i similar fine, or in case of an industrial union a fine not exceeding five hundred pounds. Tramway employers arc amongst those brought under this section of the Act. The reason of course is that where the public convenience is liable to be so seriously affected soma warning must be given to enable.those in charge of the tramways to make such arrangements as may be possible to maintain a service which will minimise the effect of a strike so far as the public arc concerned. If the tramway employees go out on strike next Saturday, as it is stated they intend to do, udlcss their deniands are conceded, they will bring themselves into conflict with the law. It is possible of course that wiser counsels will prevail. That the men consider they have a grievance is quite clear; but that docs not prove that they have one, nor have they set about their task of proving their'case in a proper way, or in the proper spirit, knowing the vote-catching propensities of certain City Councillors, they .appear to have imagined that, all they had to do was to make their demand to have it acceded to. They have taken up an attitude which, if .submitted to, means the end of discipline in the tramways service, and the crippling of the powers of the management, which must prove disastrous to the wo:king of this large city undertaking. They have, made themselves appear frankly and openly selfish and utterly rogardlrss of the public interest and the public convenience. In order to compel the city to dismiss an Inspector, who, according to the Manager, is an efficient and faithful servant of the City Corporation, but who has found disfavour with the tramwaymen whoso work it is his duty to supervise, they are apparently prepared, so far as lies in their power, to paralyse the means of transport in the' city and cause enormous inconvenience to the public. It is difficult to believe that the men have given the position that serious consideration which its importance demands. We fear they have been led on by their belief that certain City Councillors would not dare to oppose their deI sires in tho matter of the dismissal of ; Inspector. Fuller, because of their • voting strength at election times. [ Their vote after all is a small thing i compared with the vote of citizens ) generally, as tho Mayor and tho ■ Councillors who supported him will . probably discover in due course. In r the meantime the Council, while bcc--5 ing that full justice is done to 3 all its employees, must safeguard tho 1 interests of citizens, and to do this it - must make it clear that no section of ) its employees shall dominate tho con--3 duct of the city's affairs. A strike is - an unfortunate thing at any time, s but better a striko now than submist sicn to demands which, so far as has - been disclosed, have no real justificai tion, and which, if conceded under t the circumstances in which they have y been made, will mean the end of disf ciplinc and the end of sound busij ness management of the city tramr ways.