A COMMON-SENSE GREED

Evening Star, Issue 19456, 14 January 1927, Page 3

A COMMON-SENSE GREED

AMERICAN WORKERS’ POLICY [Contributed by the New Zealand Welfare League.] As a message with which to open the new year (1927) wo have seen nothing better than tho following creed relating to industry, which, has been put forth, in the name of American workers, by tho Federation of Labor in that great country. The pronouncement speaks for itself, and we present it in the hope that both employers and wageearners in New Zealand may benefit by reading it. The ‘ Cleveland Fcdcrationist,’ an advocate of the American Federation_ of Labor, recently contained tho following under tho heading ‘ Our Platform ’: — 1. We stand for the best interests of the working people. 2. Wo ar© emphatically opposed to violence and intimidation at all times. 3. We are opposed to the Industrial Workers of the World and their methods. 4. Wo are opposed to Socialism as impractical and Bolshevism as nnAmerican, and not being in accord with the policy of the American Federation of Labor. 5. Wo believe in the honorable settlement of labor disputes by peacable and conciliatory methods. 6. Wo believe in tho mutuality of interest of all persons in industry, and are opposed to those destructive forces that would decrea.se production at the expense of labor. 7. We hclievo that permanent prosperity for the wage-earner will be secured only when workers become home-owners, and we support every movement to attain this end.

S. We believe in a wage system based on the skill and energy of the workmen, ensuring advancement of the competent, and stimulating tho less skilful to greater efforts. Wo include in this a minimum scale for workmen. 0. We favor strict sanitary conditions and tho adoption of modern methods for checking contagious diseases, and for the protection of the lives of the working people. 10. Wo favor safeguarding tho lives of workmen in mills, mines, and factories, and laws that will require such safety devices as may bo necessary to bring this about, and enforce fair conditions of employment for labor. THE LAW OF MUTUALITY. Read once more clause 6. That is tho doctrine which we want for our dominion and for nil parts of our British Empire. With all engaged in industry recognising their mutual’interest, what may wo not accomplish during this and succeeding years? Then there is the word to the workers and to stupid employers that decreased production is had—just bad economics—■ from which everybody suffers. Mutual interest in industry is a fact which must bo fully recognised if progress is to lie made. Though we do not subscribe to many things American, ivo welcome this word from the American workers. It sure is tho right word for our time.