TROUBLE IN AUCKLAND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1015, 5 March 1912, Page 3

TROUBLE IN AUCKLAND.

GENERAL STRIKE PROBABLE.

Auckland, March 4

A meetiug of the General Labourers’ Union to consider the reiusal of the local bodies and employers to confer with the Executive was held in the Opera House yesterday. The building was crowded. Mr P. Fraser, President of the Labourers’ Union, presided. He said that the employers had made up their minds deliberately to reject all overtures. He declared that the labourers in Auckland were the worst paid in New Zealand. The City Council was to offer its men a rise of eightpence a day on condition that they withdrew from the Union, Thus the local bodies were trying to buy the bodies and souls of the men for eightpeuce a day. Mr Parry, vice-president of the Union, ridiculed the refusal of the Mayor to debate the position. “To Hades,” he said “ with the dignity of the Mayor.” In trouble of this kind they had a right to a fair hearing ; but this was refused. He challenged the Mayor to say he knew nothing of the report that an organiser had been through the King Country and had secured promises of three hundred farmers to come to Auckland in the event of trouble.

Mr Webb, President of the New Zealand Federation of Labour, said that the strike was the last resort, but if the gloves were taken off no mercy would be shown or asked.

The following motion was unanimously adopted. “That this meeting ol citizens of Auckland protest

against the coercive tactics of the City Council and other public bodies of Auckland in refusing to discuss working conditions with the General Labourers’ Union, and condemns the action of the Mayor and Councillors in allying themselves with the employing class against organised labour, and calls upon them to place public interest paramount and help to avoid industrial trouble.”