KEEPING INDUSTRY MOVING

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 135, 5 December 1938, Page 8

KEEPING INDUSTRY MOVING

The duty of members of trades unions who accept the wide protection afforded by industrial legislation to accept also the decisions of independent tribunals set up under that legislation was again emphasised on Saturday by the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Semple). "It is time," he said, "that disgruntled minorities in trades unions woke up and realised that in fomenting stupid, comic opera strikes over trifles they are enemies to themselves, to their unions, and to their country." The Minister, following the recent example of a prominent leader in the industrial labour movement, rightly drew attention to the many advantages enjoyed by workers at the present time. Probably at no stage in the history of New Zealand have the workers had such a favourable opportunity of bettering ihcir economic position, and probably at no stage lias industry been hedged

about with so many restrictions. If industry is to survive, and if production is to be increased, it is essential that it should be allowed to operate without the continual fear of stoppages of work caused in the main by minor disputes, especially when ample machinery is provided for the settlement of disputes by peaceful means. Workers who desire to retain the protection they enjoy at present will best serve their own interests and the interests of the country as a whole by giving an adequate return for the pay they receive and the conditions they enjoy. Employers are expected to accept the terms of employment laid down in awards, irksome''as they may be in some cases, and workers should do the same. That is the only path to industrial peace, the preservation of which is so vital to New Zealand at the present time. For if conditions become impossible to those who furnish the enterprise and capital for industry, the workers will suffer most —by the strangulation of industry.