Growing Solidarity

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 12, 6 November 1913, Page 1

Growing Solidarity

INSPIRING RESPONSE FROM MINERS

Butchers Won’t Feed Specials

Support from Bricklayers, Tailors, Carpenters, Engineers and others.

Auckland Trammies will Strike the moment Scabbing starts

Or when “Specials” Appear.

Dunedin Solid to a Man

BATONS FROM BURNS’

SABOTAGE IF NOT SOLIDARITY. The daily press reports “ something of a sensation ” down the Main Trunk. A train, timed to leave a station at 10 o’clock p.m., was found with eighteen Westinghouse brake couplings completely cut. The train was delayed for some hours. Three hundred '‘specials” were on the train. SEVERAL SHOTS FIRED. Two shots were fired from a window towards the crowd The daily press has reported this and other shooting incidents.

tlie bus.” The same thing* has happened on more than one occasion, when £2 per day has been offered for labourers to take the whar ties’ place. STRIKE MEANS £20,000 PER DAY LOSS TO THE BOSSES. It is stated by the bosses themselves that the loss per da\ to them since the strike began has been something over £20,000 per day. Of course the same thing cannot be said of the entire working class, because they haven’t it to lose. How true is the working class slogan: u We have nothing to lose and a world to gain.” But, say, fellow-slave, can you wonder at the boss being snappy when direct action is used upon his banking account ? Of course you can’t; that’s where his heart lies!

GREAT SOLIDARITY The growing Solidarity is unparalelled, inspiring. . Support, moral and otherwise, is coming from all sorts of unexpected quarters. Groups of workers hitherto looked upon as reactionary and unreliable have given their promise of unswerving support and loyalty to fellow-workers in the struggle. Many have indicated their readiness for something better than moral and financial help. Many will cease work when scabbing starts.

AUCKLAND TRAMS TO STOP.

The Auckland Tramwaymen have decided to cease work in support of the Watersiders the moment scab labour or special police appear on the w'aterfront. This decision was reached at a special meeting held m the Trades Hall on Tuesday night. The following resolution was carried by about three to one:

A FRIGHTENED GOVERNMENT. About a week ago four men employed in the railway workshops down Petone way were sacked because they refused to manufacture batons at the behest of Massey. The officials and executive of the A.S.R.S. began to take the matter up for the puropse of getting the four men reinstated, and this was quickly achieved; for sooner than have the matter made public, Massey’s hirelings very quickly had the whole matter settled.

That the members of this Union cease to work the cars immediately the special polit e appear on the waterfront, and free labour commences to handle any goods.” “SOLID TO A MAN.” The following wire was received by the Auckland Wateiside Workers’ Union to-day (Wednesday) : “Dunedin solid to a mar.; will fight to a finish.” —Dwight. OTAHUHU BAKERS AND BUTCHERS REFUSE TO HANDLE PROVISIONS FOR “SPECIALS ” The following message of Solidarity was wfired to the A.W.W.U.: “ Butchers and Bakers refuse to handle provisions for three hundred specials.” —Shattock.

SCAB-PROCURER GUNSON “MISSED THE BUS.’ That scab-producer and working clsas defiler G. H. Gunson has not been so successful obtaining scabs as he at first anticipated. One case which occurred j~esterday will go to prove such. The individual referred to above rang up a certain well-known firm of electrical engineers and made an offer of 5/- per hour for any of the firm’s hands who would go aboard the vessels and drive the electric cranes. After interviewing every man about the place, the reply on the ’phone ran as follows: —“ You can make it £5 per hour if you like, but no one in this firm will scab it upon the strikers.” And so scab-producer Gunson “ missed

Heard in Queen Street from one of the strikers: “ By Jazus, the wharfies have not done much action this last couple of vears, but they’ve been doing a 11 of a lot of thinking, by the looks of things, to-day.” Quite true. Massey’s and the bosses’ tyrranical methods are the best thought-compeller after all. And we are only in the ■ beginning of things, so to speak.

A GALLANT ANTIMILITARIST. An order for 200 batons intended for use by the special police and strike-breakers oroceeding from Hamilton at the preseat time carries with it a note of more than ordinary importance. It appears the firm of Ellis and Burn and was at first favoured with the esteemed ( ?) order, but due to the fact that the firm’s foreman —who, by the way, is indirectly related to our late fellow-worker Evans, who was done to death by a similar weapon in Waihi a year ago -refused to execute the order, and the watchdogs of Capitalism w r ere forced to go elsewhere. This was done by negotiating wdth a firm trading as

Chitty and Kemp. Again trouble loomed rather high ; this time, due to the fact that the workman instructed to do the work turned out to be a real rebel and an anti militarist and refused point-blank to carry out instructions. Eventually, another ignorant slave was induced to carry out the work, and will thus enable working class skulls in Auckland to be cracked by weapons made by workers, to bludgeon workers, in the interests of the dirtiest cowards that ever trod the earth’s serf ace.

What treachery is being enacted simply because working men do not realise that their interests are identical! Here's to the anti-mili-tarist and foreman who refused to be accomplices m the murder of their fellows. By *uch actions will freedom be u on!

RAILWAYMEN AND OTHER WORKERS IN NEWMARKET GETTING UNEASY. 7 It is stated by those actually in a position to know that a considerable amount of anxiety exists amongst quite a number of railwaymen and also those engaged in the workshops at Newmarket regarding the proposal to manufacture batons for the use of special police, and the carrying of scabs, professionally and otherwise, upon the railways. So keen is the feeling upon this matter that it is freely stated that immediately boton-manufacture is requested there will be such a revulsion of feeling as to almost amount to leaving the works in a body. From the same source it is also stated that it is within the bounds of possibility for the Eailwaymen to be induced to stop running trains if “ free labour ” and “ special police ” continue to form a portion of their passenger seivice.