Longshore Notes

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 2, 1 March 1913, Page 3

Longshore Notes

The working class are, as a rule, long-suffering and kind to their masters. But sometimes the most patient will kick over the traces when their load of suffering be-

comes too heavy. The Waterside Workers have borne very patiently with all the little and big unpleasantnesses and discomforts peculiar to their calling. now and again giving vent to a growl, hut in the main taking their lot with the good-natured stoicism which is characteristic of men who have seen the world and lib 1 from many standpoints. But when out of their number an average of nearly one a day has been severely injured, also two being killed, within the last month, then they thought it time to get on their hind legs and protest in an unmistakable way. They stayed off for 24 hours on the day of the funeral of their unfortunate workmate. The companies involved lost, so they say, at least £6OO, and set up a squeal, as is only natural, they being concerned only in dividend-making and not posing as philanthropists. Well, the men showed them that on the waterfront in Auckland, anyway, it is going to be an expensive business for the bosses if they allow men to be killed and maimed instead of putting up adequate safeguards to life and limb.

It’s a business proposition, Mr. Capitalist. Which costs least—to look to the safety of men in and about the ships and wharves, or to have your industry disorganised every time you have an unfortunate wage slave done to death ?

Some individual thought it would have been better for the men to have worked that day and given the pay to the widow. Of course it would, for the boss, though not for the men. That £6OO could have been pocketed by him, and so long as he gets his surplus value he cares not whether all and every day’s pay is given to the widow of the unfortunate man or no. But the Waterside Workers know that giving a day’s pay to anyone will not get the required safety regulations put into force, and until that is done lie never knows when he might be in hospital, or his wife a widow and his children orphans, through inadequate protection whilst at work. 11 Public” opinion does not regard him much, and in his fight for greater safety lie is going to take the most effective measures, regardless of the opinion of the socalled public, which somehow or other is always for the boss and always against the worker, to bring about his desired end. BEACHCOMBER.