AN ASPECT OF UNEMPLOYMENT.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 November 1928, Page 2

AN ASPECT OF UNEMPLOYMENT.

MR COATES’S JUST INDIGNATION

Referring to ;m aspect of unemployment, tlie Newsletter says.—There i> nnother iiml more powerful reason foi Mr Coates’s indignation, and that i> the greed displayed hy these Eahoui organisers in demanding payment o' Union fees from men employed on re lief works who. if they were not “up against it,” would certainly not accept the work thus provided for then: I'.nese “organisers.” living on the pro coeds of other men’s labours, while < «•- chewing hard work themselves demand payment of Union fees before hose poor fellows are properly at work, an they have to pay out of their scanty earnings os for admission to tie l I n ion or else find their eligihd tv hn work challenged. Truly, sii ,i pi op!r are out to “grind the nose oil' the lace of the poor.” and they have the in decency to claim that they benefit the worker.

CASES IN POINT. Men employed on Relief \\ orks by the. Christchurch City Council who are very much “up against it” are compelled to pay Union fees before they are allowed to remain oil the Works. A prominent Christchurch citizen, writing to the Prime Minister, said:— “ One chap told me that lie and two other unemployed men got a lew days’ relief work. On the second day, a Labour Secretary came along and demanded dues, 10s apiece, I think. The men stated that they were practically “ broke ” and that their work was only for a lew days duration. Howbvor, the Eahoui official told them in no uncertain terms that unless they immediatelv paid twelve months’ duos to the Union that he would see they got no further work. Their morale being low, these chaps paid up. A lew days later they finished the job. Remember. it was relief work. The three of them then went round to the Union’s odiee and saw the official who had collected the “ dues.” lie was pretty rough to them and said there were umpteen hundred men down on the list for work ahead ol them and that they had better go and chase a job up lor thomsolies.

A painter, who is a member of the Wellington Amalgamated Society ol Painters’ and Decorators’ Industrial Union of Workers, who has been out of employment for a considerable time and has been vainly looking lor work, was notified hy the Secretary of lbs Union that his account on October nth. lf'i’S, amounting to U- 2s. had not been paid ,and unless it was “ paid within seven days action "<>uld be taken in the Magistrate’s Court for the

amount owing.”