INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES. Making Things Harder for the Agitator.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 139, 28 February 1903, Page 8

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES. Making Things Harder for the Agitator.

UNION is strength. The worker has learnt and applied the lesson. Hitherto, the employer has only half-conned it, but he is gradually waking up to realise its force. The movement now afoot for the formation of an Employers' Colonial Federation is an evidence of that awakening- In no sense need the worker regard these steps towards organisation and combination on the part of the masters in the light of a 'menace, or as a preliminary tj hostile measures. On the contrary, when both divisions in the great industrial hive are thoroughly organised, they will be brought into closer touch with each other, will learn to know each other better, and, by an intelligent give and take policy, may be able, in the great majority of cases, to adjust trade questions without the intervention of the Court at all. # * * It i£ v, hen masters and men are broken up into small bodies, and each one acts on its individual initiative, that the greatest amount of friction exists. Personal feeling then comes into fullest play, the questions 1 in dispute do not receive calm consideration, and the affair is heatedly rushed into Court. In addressing the Employers' Association on Tuesday night, Mr. Wardell put his finger upon one blot in connection wfcto the working of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. It is the ease with which a few noisy and. interested agitators may take a case into Court on the pretence that there is 1 a trade dispute when perhaps the majority of both masters and men have no cause of complaint and no wish to quarrel. *■ * * The remedy suggested was that the appellants should be required to satisfy the Court that they represented ai majority of the trade or calling affected. It seems quite reasonable, and if given effect to would no doubt tend to keep within moderate bounds those individuals who seem to take a peculiar delight in fomenting strife between master and man. Why should any large body of workers, who are quite content with their lot, and on the best terms with their employers, be dragged into Court as parties to an industrial dispute) merely because some cantankerous minority or some agitator living bv this sort of game busies himself to set the machinery m motion? * * » There has been far too much of this kind of thing in the past, and some safeguard is needed that will take the initiative out of the itching hands of the agitator, and place it more directly within the control of the general body of workers in any trade or calling. In that case, there will be a far stronger guarantee that the intervention of the Court will only be invoked when a real grievance is felt, and when efforts to adjust it amicably with the masters have

failed. There will be less surprise citations, fewer bogus disputes, and more leal conciliation between employers and employed. As a consequence, the Arbitration Court will have no occasion to work at the high pressure it does now. Masters and men will more frequently be able to arrive at terms of settlement between themselves when both are fully organised and the agitator finds his occupation gone.