LABOUR PROBLEMS IN AUSTRALIA
THE ONE-BIG-UNION SCHEME
UNDISGUISED CLASS WAR
Owing to his official position as Paper Controller, Miy W. Brooks, M.L.C., was ■unable to preside at the annual' meeting of tho Employers' Federation of Now South Wales. He, however, forwarded his address. There had boen launched, he said, an ambitious scheme for the i'ormation.of "one big union." There was no equivocation or want of candour on the part of those Labop leaders' who had launched the scheme. They definitely preached tho doctrine of setting class against class—workers against employers Labour against Capital—and they said definitely that the struggle- between these two classes must be continued until "Capitalism" was abolished. Russia's Example. "We can and will own the workshops," was the heading to an extraordinary circular issued under tho signature of the secretary of tho N.S.W. Labour Council. A somewhat similar organisation had taken possession vof the workshops in llussin, and nip to the present it was difficult to see that the results in that country would placo the people in any better position than that occupied by the workers in Australia under present conditions. The natural judgment of intelligent men on this grandiloquent scheme of tho "one big union" would be that it was fantastic,' oxtravagant,' and impossible. It i seemed incredible ' that the great body of workers in the various trades and industries would be prepared to sacrifice their independence and hand over their destinies to a small coterie of men over whom they would not bo able to exorcise oven the vestige of control. The proposal must not, howevor, be dismissed with indifference. There were'sufficient irresponsible, unintelligent, and revolutionary spirits in the community to give the scheme some sort of a start. Organisation and education should be the watchword df all those sections—whother employers or workers—who wished to preserve the Commonwealth from anarchy and revolution. ■ Equal Pay for Women. The necessary intrusion of .women into munition-making and other war work, and into many occupations which had hitherto been regarded as sacral to the male workers, had brought the.question of equal pay for equal work into greater prominence. The claim of "equal pay for equal work" was generally advocated in trades union circles by word of mouth, but it was to be feared that there was iiot much sincerity in this attitude. , There had. for years existed a. strong objection to 'women being allowed unrestricted access to many classes of work in skilled trades, which they were eminently suited to perform. Perhaps, however, trades unionism might now be ready to admit the right of female workers to equal opportunity for employment in any calling, provided they receive "equal pay for equal work." Possibly there was a satisfactory measure of pro'tection in the words "equal work," to protect the domain of the male worker from a female invasion. What would probably be fairer to women would bo a generous admission of women workers by employers and trades unionists to any section of industrial wprk for which they were suited, their remuneration to be fixed by an independent tribunal according to the value of the work performed. The fact could not be overlooked, however, that any attempt to fix the wages of femalo workers a 9 a class, on a paritywith that of males, ' would raise some serious economic considerations. To Prevent Strikes, Experience , had taught that it was apparently hopeless to prevent strikes by legal enactmeut. Profit-sharing schemes bad been advocated as a means of securing industrial peace; but such schemes were beset by so many difficulties in their practical and general application that they might be dismissed as being impossible of realisation, except in very exceptional and isolated business enterprises.' Under numerous industrial awards the fixed minimum' wage was the maximum amount which tho industry could afford to pay, and any.attempt to establish profit-sharing as a national policy would bo productive of bonefit in so few industries that disappointment would only lead to further discontent.
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Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 57, 2 December 1918, Page 5
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657LABOUR PROBLEMS IN AUSTRALIA Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 57, 2 December 1918, Page 5
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