TRADE UNION BILL

Hokitika Guardian, 5 May 1927, Page 2

TRADE UNION BILL

(Australian Press Association & Sun.) LONDON. .May 4. One section of the Labour Party tabled a motion for discussion at a meeting of the Labour Party to be held on Tuesday. The motion is as fallows That, in order to call attention to the iniquitous eharactei of the Government’s Trade Union Rill, the Labour Party pledges itsell to refrain from alcoholic drink and tobacco foi six months, and calls on the workers of the country to follow its example." Tiie idea of this motion is to break down the finances of the country by cutting oif the liquor and tobacco re venue.

DERATE RESUMED

LONDON. May I. In the House of Commons. Air G. A. Spencer resumed the debate on the Trade Union Bill. He was subjected to frequent Labour interruptions. Tie declared that intolerance, bigotry, vro

timisation and coercion were rampant in the Miners’ Federation. Mr Spencer described bow he was suspended, and said that lie only was heard in self-defence afterwards, because at the miners’ request, he was negotiating for them the right to return to work. AIT Spencer said that lie did not approve everything in this Bill. Ho thought that the unions should lie the collectors of political levies that would ho payable to any party which the Trade Unionist eared to indicate inside the Trade Unions.

Air Arthur Henderson (Labour) said that this Bill represented an invasion of the established rights and of the legal powers of the Trade Unions. It was such an invasion as had not been attempted since the repeal of the Combination Laws in the year 1824. The Bill made not only a general strike, hut almost every sympathetic strike, liable to lie declared illegal, even when

it was begun after giving proper notice. The Bill meant the further crippling of the unions by the curtailment of the right of picketing. It meant giving the Attorney-General a new right to intervene in the miners’ affairs through the decisions of courts, hut, on the other hand, it imposed no restrictions on the Employers’ Associa-

tions. The Bill, said Air Henderson, was a punitive and vindicative measure. The Government clearly were seeking to punish the trade unionist. Sir L. Worthington Evans (AYar Alinisteri asked the Labourites to say clearly whether they justified the general strike. Even Mr Clvnes, with an eye to the extremists outside, was afraid to condemn it. It was not the capitalists, he said, who suffered mos,t from a general strike. This Bill was intended to protect the working classes. Dealing with the political levy clause of the Bill. Sir L. Worthington Evans contended that at present every obstacle was placed in the way of a man desiring not to contribute to a levy. If the Labour Party went to the country only offering to repeal this Act, they would find that the people, as in the general strike, would he vicing with one another in defence of the Constitution. lie declared that the intimidation clause protected the working man against the Trade Union bosses, both national and local. Sir Robert Horne (Conservative) said ever since the Rill bad been published, ninety-nine per cent of the Conserve.-, lives thought that it ought to deal with lock-outs as well as strikes, and ought to put employers in the same position as the workers. He did not understand the Liberals. From the way that they had supported the Government in the general strike, they should do everything to make the recurrence of such a strike remote. Therefore, they should at least support the second reading. The Government, he said, was reluctantly compelled to' introduce the Bill, in conseqcnce of last year's general strike, in order to free the country from a menace. The Bill took nothing from the Trade l nions which was within their ordinary province. The Trade Unions were not going to be weakened, or rendered impotent because terrorism was wiped out from the country. This clause would not hurt the Trade Union funds, unless fewer people contributed than at present. If fewer did contribute, obviously they were at present unwilling contributors. He asked; “Does Trade Unionism want to go to the country demanding the l ight to enforce unwilling contributors to pay?” He was convinced that the class who would be most grateful for this Bill would be the great mass of the Trade Unionists. Air George Thorne (Liberali said that the Bill was a partisan measure, ft meant shattering the hopes of those who had worked for years for industrial peace, it was a political blunder and a crime. Sir Leslie Scott, K.C. (Conservative) appealed to the Government to include ill the Bill a provision to settle the matters of trade disputes and the right to strike. The rights of the Trades Unions should lie preserved, but he believed they denied compulsory conciliation, bv a temporary suspension or a right to strike, which might he included in the Bill. Air F. 11. Rose (Labour) said that this Bill was the negation of Afr Baldwin’s prayer “ I'eaco in Our Time!' and that it was based on crude suppression. He could not understand anyone taking a general strike as the basis of legislation. The general strike not only was dead, but was damned. Air F. -V. AfacQuistaii, K.C. (Conservative) said that no Act of Parliament could barm the Trade Unions as much as trade unionists themselves had done. He believed this Bill would restore to moderate trade unionist leaders the authority that they had lost owing to mistaken legislation in 190 G which had made the unions irresponsible bodies. Air Stephen AYnlsh (Labour) said:— “ there is no possible strike which could not be brought within the scope of this bill. The trade unionists under it will be faced with the alternative of (itlier becoming criminals or of being condemned to industrial servitude ! ” The debate was adjourned.