WATERSIDE LABOUR CONDITIONS

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 162, 5 April 1921, Page 5

WATERSIDE LABOUR CONDITIONS

Sir, —We have read tho letter of °l- - on the above subject, and fail tb see that’ his remarks are any more constructive than those he condemns. Ho says: • "There is no tolerable alternative to the present chaotic state of waterfront work outside the system briefly suggested by Air. Chapman. Of course Mr. Chapman being of the same party as Mr. Brindle, he is the oply man With any brains on the Harbo/fr Boaid, according to Air. Brindle. TZere is one thing these Socialists can. never be charged with, and that is modesty. Their etbrnal plea is "Everybody else is wrong but us.” Now what system did Air. Chapman suggest? He did not suggest anv new system at al. Ho supported Mr. Cobbe’s motion that the Harbour Board be given power t’o employ all the labour on the waterfront, and suggested that the waterside workers should have representation on the board. Another sectional representation added to fihose already existing is not a system. Why, Air. Chapman did not even move an amendment to ask that I tho Harbours Act be amended to provide for the direct representation of waterside workers on the board. Your correspondent says: “A large majority of those on the Harbour Board to-day Represent not public interests, but private interests.” If he had said all represent sectional interests ho would have been nearer the truth. Why, Mr. Chapman represents the sectional interest of a party loaded with dogmatic theory of no value in practice. The party we refer to advocates another sectional representation on the board, that of the employees, and presents it as a cure-all. Air. T. Brindle draws a doleful picture or the men on tho wharf having to wait all hours for employment, excessive hours of overtime, the undermining of health, making of social outcasts and men “being compelled to work all hours to maintain themselves and families in bare physical needs.” Does he think that people off the wharf do not knew that much of that talk is gross exaggeration presented solely for party purposes? Tho babble about vatersiders as “used tools—not human beings” is just hot! air merchandise —nothing more.

It is true that, a proportion of the men on the wharf come off ladly whilst others earn big wages and get tl’o best of all that is going. That is due io the multiplicity of control and favouritism developed. Here is the point that with nil ‘their professions tho syndicalist and Socialist advocates have never propounded any practicable scheme to better conditions. They sneer e.t attompfis by other people, but do nothing themselves. Mr. Brindle ws "Let u« clear

our minds from cant.” Right), Mr. Brindle, you start. When he says "it is not so much a question of dual or single control, but of democratic control,” what docs he mean by "democratic control”? Is representationu by sections, on' tho basis of class democratic control or is it a move towards syndicalist government of the industry? By all means l’«ve done with cant. When your correspondent represents the men employed by the Harbour Board as "the living tools of a profit-making venture” he is simply talking the usual Socialist cant. The Harbour Board is not a profit-making venture, but it is more effective on certain minds to clall it so than to tell tlie plain truth. If Mr. Brindle really desires to improve the waterside industry and bring more system and regularity into tho employment of tho waterside workers wo invite him to support the league in its call for a Government inquiry into ,the presen;! working. What we want to see is a unifying of the control of employment on the wharves; the fixing of a system of rotation in respect to engagements and the providing ‘of permanent) employment a# fully as it can be practically applied. The application of these three principles we fell certain will have the support of the genuine waterriders who are not carried away with the party cries of men who talk about the “poor watereider” just because they want his vote and influence and for no other reason.—We are, etc.,

THE WELFARE LEAGUE.