AN UNCERTAIN LAW

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 27, 31 July 1936, Page 8

AN UNCERTAIN LAW

"The Department of Labour concurs ■in our interpretation" is the concluding sentence of a circular in which an Auckland union has warned employers that it proposes to seek complete enforcement of the compulsory unionism section of the Arbitration Amendment Act. What the Department of Labour concurs in is not so clear. ' The union's circular states: "Every person, Avhether he be manager, overseer, foreman, or shareholder, who works at any section of an industry for any length of time and performs duties usually carried out by journeymen, will have to be a member of this union.". Does this mean all managers and foremen, or those who occasionally do journeyman's work? Employers are entitled ito some more exact and authoritative pronouncement. In Parliament an effort was made to exclude managers, jhut the clause was passed ..without provision for exemption—apparently in the belief that it would work out i somehow. One can see the complications that may arise—with managers (representing the employers) forced to join unions and, incidentally, entitled to attend union meetings. It would have been much better, if the Government insisted upon putting compulsory unionism into the statute, at least to allow the Arbitration I Court to say to whom it should apply. j A different problem is presented by the claims o£ several religious sects in Christchurch for exemption on the ground of their conscientious objection to union membership. The executive of the union concerned has rejected a compromise because I "there is no foretelling where conscientious objections will end, because opportunities of evading the law would be given which are undesirable from the union standpoint." Evidently the union desires lo have all in, willing or unwilling, and will [consider no objections. Possibly it foresees that there will be a very real and strong ground for objection by at least a substantial minority in the political purpose to which part of the funds of many unions will be put. We have raised this question before, and we still see in it a principle open to the strongest objection. A worker must join a union and pay the fees and levies approved by the majority; but the majority may decide to apply a portion of the funds so collected in support of the Labom- Party. This is more than industrial unionism; it is compulsory support of a political party. That it is enforced by a majority upon a minority does not alter the main fact. It is wholly at variance with the political freedom which the Government proclaims. While planning to restore such freedom to the Civil Service the Government should consider also how its legislation may affect workers who may strongly disapprove of their contributions being applied in support of a political cause with which they are not in sympathy.