The Dominion MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1920. THE WHARF BOYCOTT AND THE COST OP LIVING

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 7, 4 October 1920, Page 4

The Dominion MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1920. THE WHARF BOYCOTT AND THE COST OP LIVING

For nearly a week tho port of i Wellington has been subjected to a < gradually tightening blockade—a < blockade none the less damaging in ] effect becausc it is imposed by | waterside workors .instead of by j some external enemy—and all thinking people must _bo asking , themselves how far this sort of . ■thing is to be allowed to go. Throughout the community there is 1 a widespread eagerness to see prices \ stabilised and the cost of living if 1 possible reduced; and organised La- ' bour ostensibly is more keenly in- 1 tent'than any other section of tho ■ community upon satisfying such de- i sires. Working men and. their wives i particularly ought to examine for < themselves the 'existing deadlock on • tho waterfront, with due regard to , the oft-repeated .declarations of La- , hour spokesmen that Labour is out to 'lower the cost of living. It is, 9f. course, quite obvious that thoTo is a price to be paid for this tightI ening blockade of our port and that it will fall most heavily upon wage- 1 earners, who have every right and reason to object to quite needless burdens of this kind. Even to its present stage the hold-up has of | necessity been extremely costly. Tho loss of wages by the watersiders themselves is only the first and not by any means the greatest item. Ships aro lying idle that might have been loaded or unloaded and sent away, and the people engaged in many industries ashore are suffering 'and will suffer a3 a result of the delay of essential supplies. The, whole thing amounts to an enormous waste, the cost of which is bound to bo 'spread over tho whole community. People not only_ in Wellington City but far afield will be penalised more or less seriously because the local watersiders are' refusing to work in terms of their agreement. It is or ought to be a matter of vital concern to all wage-earners, including the watersiders themselves, that practically tho only result of tho policy the latter are at present pursuing is to force up tho cost of living. ■ This is the commanding fact "upon which attention needs to be fixed. The position, of course, would bp quite different if the watersiders were,demanding redress of some legitimate grievance and had refused work as a last resort after exhausting the facilities for amicable settlement provided in their agreement. But it is not even pretended that any such state of affairs exists. It is not plainer that tho watersiders aro penalising the whole community—themselves and all other 1 wage-earners included—by forcing up the cost of living than that their action is based upon no grievance and amounts to a wanton violation of their agreement and an attempt by militant el'c-' ments to dictate conditions of waterfront work which the employers could not accept without inexcusably betraying their trust and the duty they owe to the public. This verdict may be substantiated without going past statements officially made on behalf of tho Watersido Workers' Union.' Tho wholo thing is summed up in ono sentonco of a letter (published in our news columns to-day) which tha union forwarded on Friday to tho employers of waterside labour:— Our disputo is whether the employers have the right to lock out all of our unemployed mombers because labour is not available for the s.s. Calm, This is an official statement mado on behalf of the union, and it asserts in plain terms that tho watorside workers are entitled to boycott a particular ship—in other words that they are entitled to violate the first principle of their own and all other industrial agreements. The port of. Wellington is held up, and the cost of living as a consequence is being forced up, simply and solely because the watersiders aro assorting tho right .to boycott a particular ship. Nothing that has been said on behalf of the union affects this central fact. Tho resolution passed by its executive on Friday which in part affirmed a belief that "when employers arc prepared to engage labour unckr normal there will be fio ■ difficulty in. obtaining labour for the s.s. Calm," is manifestly an attempt to sidestep the facts. Thn employers have'all along been "prepared to engage labour under normal conditions," and the only departure from normal conditions is in the attempt of tho watersiders to boycott the Calm. Ample proof of a systematic boycott is, of course, afforded in the fact that repeated calls for men to .work Jihe Calm, with ample labour unemployed, have failed to attract the reqitirod response—only "five men offering when fifty were needed. Here thou is the position: Tho waterside workers aro not even professing ~a grievance. The utmost demand made by their union executive is for precisely the conditions—the engagement of labour under, normal conditions—that will obtain as soon as the boycott of the Calm is lifted, and are 'set aside only by tho continuance of that boycott. The watersido workers, or' thoso _ who dominate their policy and attitucle, are themselves withholding tho very conditions their union executive declares they arc anxious to secure, With these in some respects farcical circumstances clearly it may ' be asked for what reason, with what \ purpose, and in wjiose interest the work of the port is held up and the whole community saddled witli an increaso in the cost of living v.-hi:h assuredly will fall not learn heavily on wage earners and their Stimilios ? In connection not only with the present waterfront dead--1 lock, but with other industrial dis- > turbances of which it is typical, it J lias become.' sup icmely necessary to I find such an answer .Jo theso and 1 related questions as wiil permit of a ; full remedy being applied. Mean* 1 time, it is painfully evident that laws which aim at keeping down the cost of living by the supprea--1 sion of profiteering and in other f ways aro fatally incomplete,and in- ' effective while they afford the _pub- ] lie no protection against tho inipoj sition of such heavy additional burj dens' an the waterfront deadlock is ■ bound to occasion.