ANOTHER “SCRAP OF PAPER”

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 186, 3 May 1940, Page 8

ANOTHER “SCRAP OF PAPER”

The Auckland public’s resentment against the “go-slow” tactics of that city’s tramwaymen is not to be wondered at. In this ill-advised attempt to intimidate the Auckland Transport Board into granting an 8 per cent, increase in wages the union has repudiated an agreement the terms of which are plain. What is more, the men have used as a weapon the feelings and convenience of the people who find the money for their wages—the general public—and by doing so they have provided an unwelcome example of industrial unionism’s failure to realize that today communal harmony and the national welfare that harmony maintains must cotne before sectional ambition and selfishness.

The point at issue in the tramway dispute is a simple one. Two years ago the Auckland Transport Board and its traffic staff entered into a three-year agreement. Because of the long term of this agreement two special clauses were inserted. One provided for an annual review of wages if the cost of living varied by more than 5 per cent. The other stated that “in the event of a failure to agree on any question arising under this (the previous) clause, then any such difference between the parties shall be referred to the Court of Arbitration for settlement.”

This mutual undertaking could not be clearer, but the union has thrust it aside. Between February, 1938, and February of this year the cost of living varied by more than 5 per cent., and negotiations were opened for a review of wages.' The Transport Board offered an increase of l|d. an hour (approximately 5 per cent.), but the union demanded an extra 2|d. an hour (8 per cefit.). The board did not agree, and decided to refer the question to the Court of Arbitration — the procedure provided for in the agreement. The union then broke its pledge by abruptly ordering a “go-slow” in the guise of “instructions” to the tramwaymen as to how “safety regulations should be carefully observed.” The principle which has been violated in this petty case is that self-same principle whose destruction on an international scale has caused the present war. The tramway agreement in its own small way was another “scrap of paper,” solemnly endorsed when its provisions suited all parties, yet lightly torn up by one party when its undertakings delayed new-found ambitions. The democracies are fighting today to re-establish the strength and inviolability of the pledged word. On pledges, honourably kept, rests the whole process of civilized international dealing. On them depends also—and in no less degree—the fabric of every community within a single nation, and the structure of the. nation itself. No doubt the Auckland tramwaymen were persuaded into hasty demonstration without thought of the principle involved. Nevertheless, their action is both untimely and indefensible, and calls for the firmest discouragement.'