TRADES UNION BILL.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1662, 31 January 1913, Page 5

TRADES UNION BILL.

CRITICISED LABOUR AMENDMENT. V . " .'■. . 'i By Telegraph-Press Association-Copyright London, January 29. >:] The amendmont to tho Trade Union Bill, proposed by Mr. G. J. Wardle, Labour member for Stockport, has been adopted. It confers powers on the Registrar of Friendly Societies to redress the grievances of members of a union where there has been a breach of the rules. \ , Some Labour members ■ declared that the amendment is worse than tho Osborne judgment. '■ ■ i

. (Rec. January 30, 10.20 p.m:) . I '' London, January 30. | In committee on the Trade Union Bill Sirs Rufus Isaacs, Attorney-General, mov-' ed to make the Registrar's decision con-| elusive, without an appeal to the Law CoUrts. ..'"'.• Both this and Mr. Wnrdle's amendment were carried without division. '

The main object of the Trade Unions Bill is to undo the effect of the Osborne judgment, which declared the application of trade union funds to political purposes, such as the payment of tho salary of a member of Parliament, illegal. "This is to be done," says the "Times," "not in a direct manner, hut somewhat circuitously. Payments for the advancement of political objects are not to be legal unless the furtherance of such objects is approved as an object of a union by a resolution by ballot of a majority of the members voting. Such payments are to bo made out of a special fund, to which'no .member, neqd contribute if he gives notice of his unwillingness; and members exempt from the obligation of contributing to,,the political fund are to be under no disability. Tho Bill provides machinery for recording dissent, and. continues a Clause, somewhat vaguely worded, to the effect that non-exempted members may contribute under a private levy ;to the nolitical fund, or' that tho exemntod members may bo relieved from the whole or a part of the periodical contribution.".