WAGES STANDARD

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 125, 24 November 1930, Page 8

WAGES STANDARD

FEAR OF SEDUCTION

MR. COOK'S FORECAST

A suggestion that the Unemployment Act had been passed for the purpose«of bringing about a reduction of wages in New Zealand was made by the president of the Alliance of Labour (Mr. Arthur Cook) when presiding at a meeting held in the Trades Hall last evening. "I believe that a number of prominent Labour men,who at the outset stated that the Bill would bo a wages reducing Bill very nearly stated the exact truth," said Mr. Cook. "During tho past few weeks that has been brought home to me very forcibly in tho public works of the Dominion. The Act is going to hit those workers very hard. In four or five jobs recently practically all the single men have been dismissed, arid it has also been the policy to put off a lot of aged men, men who have had as much as twenty-five years' experience in the public works of this country. I believe the idea is to throw them on the Unemployment Board, and when they have been reduced to semistarvation they will be at the mercy of any employer who wishes to secure their services." . < A voice: "At scab wages." Mr. Cook: "I believe a proper Unemployment Bill would be all right, but this is not going to be all right, so far as we can judge at the present time. It appears that the idea is to bolster, up tottering industries and to supply tho farming community with workers at a rate much below union rates." Boferring to tho same matter later, on, the secretary of the alliance (Mr. James Eoberts) said it was not difficult to see why the Press of the country was trying 'to create disunity in the ranks of the Labour movement. "The president of the Employers' Federation (the Hon. T. Shailer Weston) held a meeting last week," said Mr. Eoberts, "and he said that wages must come down. Let me tell Mr. Weston that the workers of the Dominion have already had their wages reduced. Employment has become so casual that the ordinary labourer can scarcely exist on the wages he is getting. Unemployment 'is so rife and jobs are so insecure, that half of the workers are unemployed for some portion of the year. I want to tell you that so far as I am concerned I would not for a moment countenance a reduction of wages. I do trust tha^ whatever happens, the Labour movement will be united on that point." A voice: "What sort of a fight would you put up?" Mr. Eoberts: "Any fight you Jike. And I might say that when you are into the fight ankles up I will be into it up to the neck. The job of the alliance is to '• try and get the Act amended." A voice: "By holding protest meetings." Another voice: "What about a oneday strike?" Mr. Roberts: "AH right, friend, you go on strike to-morrow morning. I won't stop you. However, we don't want any more side-tracking." A voice: "We know you don't." Mr. Eoberts declared that in 1922 tho Press and the capitalists began to talk about a reduction in wages, and before many weeks had passed the workers themselves were saying that wages would come down." A voice: "What did the alliance do about it?" Mr. Eoberts: "They fought it." During question time, Mr. Eoberts was asked wha,t steps he was going to take to see that'-the workers were given the right to elect their own representatives. Would he call a strike? Mr. Eoberts said he was the servant of the workers, and" would do anything they told him to do. "Whatever the workers tell me to do, I will bo ia with them," he declared. '