The Dominion. TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 1813. STRIKES AND THE ACT.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1701, 18 March 1913, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 1813. STRIKES AND THE ACT.

The docision"'ol the Arbitration Court yesterday in favour of the Ngahauranga Slaughtermen's Union's appeal against the Labour Department's refusal to {jrant its registration under the Arbitration Act is of very considerable importance. It will be remembered that the Wel- ! linjjton District Union cancelled its registration in order to go on strike, went on strike without incurring; penalties, and then, in the early stages of the strike, applied for and obtained registration afresh on February 4. ' Not only was this a gross abuse of the Act, so cynical that it would have turned public opinion against the union even if' their demands had had (as they had not) any merit; but it was also a very "sharp". attempt at a dog-in-the-manger policy. For the object of reregistration was to prevent any other slaughtermen from forming a fresh union and coming under the Arbitration Act. Nobody will regret that the clever tactics so-carefully thought out by the. striking union have turned out to have been just a little too clever. Whoever was responsible for the plan of campaign mußt be feeling particularly foolish justpow, when not only the strike has failed, but also the attempt to prevent the registration of a union of the more reasonable men in the slaughtering trade. _ The Court had'no difficulty in ruling that the registration of the Ngahauranga Union could not be estopped by the ' striking union, which had merely used the Act for whatever_ could be got out of it. After pointing out that the striking union had, after re-registration, made no attempt to seek a settlement of the dispute under the Act, the Court went on to say : "It would be intolerable if the existence of a union which has played fast and loose with the arbitration system, as tho Wcllingiion union has done, should bar tho registration of another, union, the members of which have a bana-fide desiro to use the machinery of the Act. To hold that would enable tho machinery of 'the Act to be used for tho very purpose of defeating the fundamental "object of tho Act—viz., to secure settlement of disputes by conciliation and arbitration. ... There is the further objection that, under its rules, the AVellington union is, in effect, a close corporation. .Membership can only be obtained on proving to the satisfaction of the oxecutive that tho applicant is a suitable person lo become a member thereof." The Court treated the striking union with unnecessary consideration in implying that its case might have been better if, on re-registering, it hud given some evidence of honnfides by applying for a new award. If fcliey had acted honn-fidr., and had not merely sought to "rush" the companies by striking in the middle of the season, the strikers would have applied for a new award on or before the expiry of the old award, and would not have gone on strike at all. . The judgment of the Court is po clear, and is so clearly expressed, that we can leave it to speak for itself, while we proceed to note one or two very obvious lessons of tho nice little plan that so badly miscarried. Obviously, it is intolerable, so long as the Arbitration Act re- , mains on tho Statute Book, that it

should lend itself so easily to abuse either by unions bent on strikes or by anyone else. That a union engaged in a strike should, whether in furtherance of the strike or not, be able to register under the Act without ending the .strike, is plainly oontrary alike to reason, justice, and the spirit and intention of the Act itself. There is no real difference between the actual position of' this union after its re-registration on February 4 and the position that woiud arise if a union which, having registered, and having not yet applied for an award, were to order a strike of its members. To prevent Li- " rom becoming an object of public contempt, and an agent of serious'injustice, unions actually engaged in a strike should be denied registration or re-registration. They should- be treated as being beyond the vision of, and disentitled to recognition by, the Arbitration Act and its administrators. Equally Olear is it that the abortive strategy of the Wellington District Slaughtermen's Union has shown the necessity for amending the Act so that the cancellation of registration shall (proper safeguards being provided for the'cases of individual objectors to cancellation) automatically debar that union and its members from reregistration for some reasonable period. Perhaps it is worth noting— for it does throw a little more light upon the spirit, the intention, arid the methods of the striking union— that during the hearing of the case before the Arbitration Court last week, the secretary of the union admitted that about the middle of February ho had privately told Mit, Massey that the strikers were "well .beaten." Yet a good deal later than that he was making statements to the press of a kind to lead the slaughtermen and the public into supposing that the strike was succeeding. Tie whole incident points clearly to the necessity for such an amendment of the Act next Eession as will make impossible such a farce as the conversion of a Statute designed to avert strikes into a shield and buckler for strikes and strikers.