WHAT THE BASIS IMPLIES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 561, 23 April 1913, Page 3

WHAT THE BASIS IMPLIES.

I By W. T. Young, Secretary Wel- | lington Seamen's Union, The general entering into battle does not divide bis army into two or more opposing factions —each operating against and attacking the other, but with tactical intelligence combines his forces into one solid, harmonious organisation, to secure the destruction of his enemy and accompanying victory for his army. Thus we have a lesson in solidification that can beneficially be studied, copied and adopted by the opposing Labour factions in this and all other countries During the past three or more years the working class army of New Zealand has been divided into two or more industrial and political factions, each possessing almost identical goals of emancipation, but each bitterly opposing and attacking the other to the detriment of the army itself and the absolute safety and security of the enemy—the employer and capitalist generally. By the basis of unification, now under discussion and exposition, the January Labour Conference has laid the foundation of a movement that has for its fundamental object the combining of the opposing working class factions now existing into one harmonious industrial organisation and one political party, which will secure the destruction of the labour ers' enemy and place the army—the people —in power. A movement that will make the weakest link in industrial conflict equal with the strongest, and thus not only be a means of prevention, but will make strikes almost unnecessary and impossible. In the past the unions have represented a state of weakness by their individual isolation of each other. They have represented a number of small and larger isolated and disconnected industrial links, each and all possessing the same aim and aspira tion, but each acting and operating entirely independent of the other without combined consultation, they assisting to defeat the very objective they are organised for and endeavouring to attain It is now candidly admitted that the slaughtermen of New, Zealand were badly defeated in their recent conflict with employers. Their organisation represented mere ly one industrial link of many standing apart and weak in its isolation from the others, but the employers were not bo correspondingly weak, inasmuch as their industrial links were effectively welded into a chain of organisation, resulting in all links coming to the aid of the one attacked, thus making an injury to one an in jury to all in the employing ranks, a principle adversely criticised by the daily press when applied to the labouring class ; but heartily supported when applied to employers. Closely iden tified with the slaughtermen were a number of organisied, but disconnected links of industry, in sympathy with the men involved, but through their isolation of each other failing to render necessary aid essential to success, thus in the conflict it was seen that the weakness of the slaughtermen was an infinitesimal contributing factor to their defeat when compared with other contributing factions consisting of organised unionists, who possessed the same ideals as the slaughtermen, but handled the product of the scab killer.

By the method of organisation propoße'd by the United Federation of Labour the freezer would refuse to handle the scab killed carcase, the labourer would do likewise, the railway man and carter would refuse to transport it from the works, the local retail butcher would refuse to deliver it, the local consumer would refuse to purchase, the waterside worker would refuse to load it into ships, and the seaman would refuße to transport it oversea. Had this method of organisation prevailed there would have been no Waihi strike, and if there had been, not a single policeman, baton, or scab would have been transported overland or oversea to the seat of the conflict. With a proper system of industrial organisation there will be no scabß, and with no conflicts between unionists and scabs there will be no need for policemen and batons at the seat of trouble. It is not the scab who defeats the unionist, it is the unionist defeating unionist by a system of disconnected organised industrial factions owing little or no allegiance to each other.

The United Federation will overcome this weakness in organisation by uniting all the organisations into one big and powerful federation embodying industrial departments, or groups, and these in turn embodying individual unions, but allowing each and every union the absolute right of selfgovernment, but making provision so that no one union shall involve another in a strike without placing its case unreservedly before its department for consideration and decision, which shall be binding on the union involved and all other units of the department, and no department shall involve another department or, the national organisation in a strike without placing its case unreservedly in the hands of the national executive for decision, such decision to be binding on the department involved and the whole organisation. Thus the machinery of organisation operates from the individual union through the department to the national body. The union, having the power of self-government,,and possessing the right to initiate a strike within its own tanks, the United- Federation leaves to each union the exclusive

right of dettrmining whether it will be registered under the Arbitration Act cr not, but in the evvent of any union withdrawing from Arbitration the whole puwer of the organisation --if needs be—will be used to prevent the registration of a bogus union, so that the main body of workers of an industry shall be held intact in the original body.