The Strikers' Foes.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 79, 13 September 1912, Page 4

The Strikers' Foes.

The Terrible Taint of Scabbery.

ARBITRATIONISTS AND LABORITES.

By H.E.H. When a, handful of men broke from the Waihi Workers' Union and formed a scab organisation iv an endeavor to. drag the Waihi workers back to the Arbitration Court and the competitive contract system, it was no secret whatever that the gold-mine owners were back of the move. The. Rev. G. W. Smailes, of Te Aroha, personally told tho writer that he was fully cognisant that this was so, and the fact that the. Waihi blacklegs have been supported ever since the strike commenced and are still being supported with money provided by the Employers' Associations, and also the various utterances of the accredited spokesmen of the employers* go to show how absolutely the engine-drivers are the pawns in the employers' game. Furthermore, the repeated declarations by associations of employers and individual employers in favor of the Arbitration Court as against the Federation of Labor is surely emphatic confirmation of our oft-repeated charge that the Arbitration Court makes for the interests of the masters and therefore against the interests of the workers. The employers would be foolish indeed if they did not favor a tribunal that wrested control of working-class matters a.way from the organisations of the workers and placed it fully in their own hands—in the hands of those who exploit the, workers,. Here is the position in a nutshell. The worker is a seller of the commodity of labor-power. The'employer is a buyer of the commodity of labor-power. When labor-power is purchased and applied, it produces several times more than it cost. The difference; between its coat and its result is called surplus, value. On this surplus value the masterrclass lives. In the case of all other commodities the seller —subject to the limitations of tho law of supply and demand —fixes the. selling price, and may refuse to sell if he can't secure his own terms. "But the buyers of labor-power (the employers) insist that th© sellers oi labor-power shall not be, permitted to fix the price of their commodity in the way of the sellers of other commodities. They, insist, that the price shall hf fixed by compulsion — they facetiously call it "arbitration." They take one. man from the buyers' side and another man from the sellers' side—with yet another man (called a judge) from the buyers' side, to hold the balance of power, and; to give, a final decision on all debated points. Thus the sellers of labor-power on the Arbitration Court Bench are always in a majority of two to one; and therefore all Arbitration Court decisions, whether regarded as favorable or unfavorable by the workers, are decisions of the. buyers—of the masters. Against this method is the method of the- Federation of. Labor,, which de-. Clares for the world's wealth for the world's workers, and which claims for the workers the right to fix the selling prioe of their labor-power through their own organisations. Waihi history, Auckland and Wellington tram history, waterside history, and all other working-class history proves how superior the latter method is to the former; and the masters know it, and do npt seek, to hid© the fact that they \now it. It was, therefore, inevitable that the employers should spare no. effort to wreck the Federation of Labor; and, having failed in the pitting of their strength against that of the Federation in one -direction, it was inevitable that the employers should turn their eyes and throw their efforts in. other directions. In the struggles, industrial., political, national and inter national, the enemy through all history- has found his agent in the traitor among his opponents.* At Waihi. the employers found men who. were, ready to blackleg. At Huntly they ba.ve found some men. who are ready to. blackleg—for a pfige,. It is amusing to road the almost frenzied declamations of bodies like the Auckland Employers' Association •against the Federation of Labor and their pleas, in flavor of the blaoklegs, and to. note, tha cool mendaoiousness with which the "'power of- a minority to create industrial troubles" is denounced, while the action of- a few dozen blacklegs— in ftefranoo of tha decision of the great majority recorded by secret ap*ohiu4eil,. At Waihi a minority of some 20 or 30 men disregarded the. decision of 15Q0 others, and precipitated, tbei trouble there. The employers at once broke through their agreement with the union, and adopted the scabs (whoso action was, as everybody knows, pre-arranged in the ofgoe of the gold-mine owners). At little Kaitawgata, the secret ballot resulted in a big majority against, arbitration, hut the owners again adopted the scabs (whose methods worn oi the employer*' making), the Federa,-; tion men and the Socialists were denied, employment. At Huntly 500 raen in tlie union are against th<J arbitration methods of the employers, and 15 or 16. men. (whose conduct, has. also been determined for them by the employers) are ready to defy the majority and to do scab work for the employers, and the objection of the majority to tha minority's undemocratic and blackleg doings are denounced by the employers as a further demonstration of the tyranny, and oppression of the Federation of Labor. By a marvellous sfcretehing of their very elastia imaginations the enjployers. have succeeded in convincing themselves that it's "against all majorityrule" for 1500 men to refuse to be dominated and have their working conditions regulated for them by 20 or 30 men; and it's, the acute of democratic law in New Zealand for tiny minorities, bought over by the employers, to be permitted to violate every recorded decision of the majority. No greater condemnation could be heaped on the Arbitration Court than

Detestable Blackleggery and the Bosses.*

the shriekings of the employers ia its favor. No greater compliment could be paid to an industrial organisation than the vitriolic declamations of the exploit--ers and their almost demands that ' 'the Government must introduce legislation for the prevention of strikes," and their, demands that the. workers —if they can't be prevented from striking—must take secret, ballots to determine whether they'll strike. And also their openly-expressed determination to see that the law-abiding men," they call tihem-r-are provided with the usual pieces of silver during the strike. It cannot be too strongly emphasised that in the cases referred to the evidence is overwhelming—it comes direct from the mouths of the employers —the enginerdrivers who are the immediate cause of the troubles are the paid tools, the bought scabs, of the employers. When they walk abroad little, children look upon them with hatred and contempt; good women move to the far side of the track when they meet them; honest men execrate them. The detestation that humanity has for Judas, accumulated through two decades of centuries, humanity in New Zealand has for those few hought-and-sold creatures who for the glitter of a little passing gold have precipitate!! such a struggle as that of Waihi and are ready to precipitate another fight at Huntly. Of all the traitors whose deeds, have, revolted humankind, Q-f 1$ who are execrated in history, are* none so revolting, none so utterly and irredeemably execrable as those who sell their class for the gold of the master—who deliberately wre<**k homes, bring hardship to. the good, true women who are the wives of the workers; bring want and hunger and the threat of death to the little children that prattle in love, in the workers' homes. There is no crim*? greater than th© crime of the scab—-there ia no deed mora dastardly than the deed of thoaft men who at Waihi and Huntly and els-"-*, where have received their price from the workers' enemies. Side by side with the employers' denunciation of the Federation of Labor and their endorsement of th© scabs comes with striking significance the naked and unashamed proclamations and pronunciamentos of the N.Z. Labor party—also in denunciation of the unionists and in favor of tho Bcab-|. There ia no word the employers have said in favor of "arbitration"—or control of the unions by the, the so-called Labor party has in effect also said, either through its branches trading under the name of Trades and Labor Councils, or through the capitalistic Wellington "Times" or the misnamed "Voice of Labor." There is no word the employers have Baid in favor of the handful of men who have scabbed on their class, but the so-called Labor party has in effect also said. There is no call that the employers have made for the cutting off of supplies from the women and children of Waihi and Reefton but has been re-echoed by this marvellously-constituted Labor party, which has thus lived dowm to the worst traditions and examples of that mid-dle-class organisation which in Australia masquerades under the name of "Labor," while making aud administering laws for the wrecking of the working-class movement and the jailing of the working-class men and women and boys, in the interests of the masterclass.