RESTRICTION OF TRADES UNIONS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 90, 18 April 1911, Page 2

RESTRICTION OF TRADES UNIONS.

OSBOBNE JUDGMENT AND NEtt ZEALAND. A DEMAND FOR LEGISLATION. CBX TELBGRArH — PRESS ASSOCIATION.] CHRISTCHURCH. 17th April. At the Trades and Labour Councils' Federation of Labour Conference, Mr. E. J. Carey (Wellington) moved the following remit: "That tho Concilinfcion and Arbitration Act and the Traces Union Act be amended so as to remove the restrictions imposed on trades unions by virtue of tlae Osborne judgment." He said it was absurd that workers in New Zealand should be governed by House of Lords law^ or by a- law that the Liberal Government of England was prepared to repeal. It ought not to be necessary ia New Zealand to ask for its repeal by a Liberal Government, which aifected to have the interests of trades unionism at heart. (A voice: "Which is bunkum.") Trade unionists should not be put to tho expense of litigation in the matter. , Mr. M'Laren, M.P., said that the mattor arose first in New Zealand when tho Solicitor-General r&jectod rules which allowed a union to take political action. A body or trade firm might take political a-etion, but not of a party nature, in the interests of its trade and of their clients. Similarly, » trades union might havo to take political action, in the interests of its members. It had not been shown that rules providing for political action by •ffrades unions were contrary to statute law, but the position was taken up that trades unions were subject to common law rulings in England, and that was where tho seriousness of the disability of New Zealand trades unionists existed. Whilst subject to those English rulings, they did not get the -benefit of England's special statutory enactments. Thus the Taff Vale decision had been nullified by bgislation in England,, but in New -Zealand they were m the anomalous position that the miners' unions registered under the rrades Union Act were subject to the laft Vale decision. As a matter of fact, New Zealand was twenty years behind the Old Country in regard to the protection of the workers under law. The English Labour Party would possibly get legislation through reversing the effect of the Osborne judgment. Whether unions would use their members' funds on all occasions for political purposes was not the issue. The position was that the funds belonged to the members, who should be free to use them as they thought necessary, and provided they did not conspire against the general law" The New Zealand Government, in getting the Solicitor-General's advice on the subject, simply showed an element of bias against tho tradea unions of the country, and the trades unions should not lose sight of it. The progressive Go\f«rnmenfc of New Zealand, he pointed out, left the Trades Union Act in the position it was in' 1878, whilst in England the statute had been amended over and o\w again. The New Zealand Government would not tnovo forward till the workei-s made them. It was necessary that they should stand absolutely solid on this, und give the country to understand that they were in earnest. Individual members of unions might contend that they objected to the funds being used for political ad ion, bub they had to be governed by the majority. The remit was agreed to.