ALLEGED VICTIMISATION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3852, 2 October 1928, Page 3

ALLEGED VICTIMISATION.

(To the Editor). Sir, —In consummation of the promise I made in my last letter to place the full facts of the alleged victimisation of the two Union delegates to the conference, I shall now proceed to do so, but owing to the mass of information I am hi possession of, I shall need be as brief as possible. To commence, these two delegates need no sympathy from th 6 local men, but as I unfold the facts, I sincerely hope they will see just how low their intelligence is in the estimation of their secretary. The firm for whom this pair of delegates work, decided to call tenders for tramming out flax, but they refused to put in a price, except under their old conditions, the result was that two other men secured the contract, employing an extra hand to assist them, and it’s here that the sinister aspect of. the actions of a Union official creeps in. We are told the affair has been amicably settled. Well, here is what the local men have not been told. These delegates at the conference demanded to peruse the millers books containing, ■ we were told, tales of fabulous wealth, yet actually these two delegates on enquiry were receiviving more per week jn income from their jobs than some of the Foxton millers from their week’s milling. These two delegates each received > during the season in the vicinity of eleven pounds per week. Do any of , the local men get that? Now for the ‘ settlement of the alleged victimisation. A budding candidate for Labour at Palmerston North is involved in this settlement, as well as the servant of the Union. Political pull was used, as the Premier did not want to give his opponents any ammunition, in view of the elections, and as a result a three-page telegram was sent to this particular firm, and as a consequence the men who tendered for the 'job successfully in the first place were superseded by the non-tendering delegates at the old price—but not subject to the 10 per cent. cut. Yet the Foxton men have to work at a' 10 per cent, reduction. Nice, is it not, comrades? At the meeting held in Shannon strike was in the air, and you were to be used as pawns in the game. Are any of the local toilers holding down jobs in the flax in the flush and the off season worth £7OO per year? Again, we have the spectacle of notices posted up in the mills calling upon the employees to pay up subs, under penalty of losing their jobs/ What are the subs, for, to bolster up a cushy job worth eight pounds per week to pander to individuals in jobs worth eleven pounds per week? Where does the bottom, dogger come in? In further placing facts before the local men, here is a sample of those persons’ idea of unionism: They start work at six in the morning, finish at eight o’clock at night, take half a day on Saturdays, and to make up for it, work all day on Sundays. Yet the award says 48 hours per week. Then have we not heard the secretary say that whoso breaks the award is a scab? These are the essential facts, but I cannot . say at present what the Union will now do for the men who tendered and secured the job in the first place, plus 10 per cent, reductoin, and had to surrender it to the disgruntled delegates; nor have I heard any resolutions passed to condemn such a despicable action. Why? Well, the deed was done under secretarial connivance, to install the delegates into that job, by hook or by crook. To tell us to be loyal to the award, to have kept the mills idle for five months, and then in the finish to send us back to work less 10 per ceht., is just stupid, but to know that such a settlement as the above was brought about under conditions that, to say the least, gives rise to disquieting suspicions. These are the facts, and it is time the local men woke up to realise their standard of intelligence as measured by officials of the Union, who take toll of their wages each pay day. What for? Ask yourself, discerning reader. As to what I have written, I defy the secretary to contradict me. In the near future, through your columns, sir, I will endeavour to explain the