ABOUT STRIKEOLOGY

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 4, 1 May 1913, Page 2

ABOUT STRIKEOLOGY

The worker who comes out on strike, and, instead of seeing the thing through, packs up his swag and goes in search of another job, is scabbing in about the most effective way possible. He may do it unwittingly, yet the fact stands out glaringly, for as sure as lie secures a job elsewhere, thereby displacing another slave, who in turn displaces yet another, and so on, the final result is that a scab is crowded back to the strike area to break the strike.

This fact requires to be driven home and riveted into the mind of every worker in New Zealand. When you are in a fight your place is in the fight area, not hundreds of miles away making profits for the boss, sending scabs back to take your place, and —perhaps contributing a dole to those who are fighting the battle. You may argue that some great “ Labour Leader” advised you to take this course, but that only proves the “ Labour Leader” to be either a knave or a fool. It does not excuse you, for, whichever designation of the two suits him, you have no right to have him for a leader, and less to heed his advice.

The only hope for success in a sectional strike is for every man to remain at his post, ready for any emergency, and prepared to go hungry, if need be. If men are not willing to make this sacrifice then assuredly they will scab on themselves, and when this stage arrives the best tactics for militants to adopt is to arrange for all to go back in a body, for they know that of twenty-seven different forms of strike only one lias been exhausted, and they can continue to put each of the remaining twenty-six in operation, if need be, on the job until their object is attained. In the Waihi strike a large number of the men left and secured work elsewhere, and there is no doubt that as far as rock and quarry work was concerned other workers were fired to make room for the strikers, they being more efficient profit-making machines in that line.

Of the slaughtermen who remained in New Zealand, many went to work on other jobs as soon as the strike was declared.

If some of the men thus displaced scabbed at Waihi and in the Freezing Works, shall we blame them the most, or the strikers who competed successfully with them for jobs ?

After the two instances mentioned we know that a sectional strike is lost when we hear the strikers are going away looking for work elsewhere. Let this fact stand out —the man who leaves a strike and takes another job is a scab; and, if he thinks the matter out at all he knoivs it.—P.F.