NOT SATISFIED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26633, 2 December 1947, Page 4

NOT SATISFIED

TRADE UNION LEADERS SELECTION OF CANDIDATES REPRESENTATION IN HOUSE Industrial Correspondent WELLINGTON, Dec. 1. Trade union leaders at a meeting of the National Council of the New Zealand Federation of Labour, just concluded, expressed their discontent with the Government’s attitude towards the industrial Labour movement in recent months, and determined to put their weight behind a campaign within the Labour movement for the selection of industrial Labour candidates for parliamentary elections.

Final decision on the selection of parliamentary candidates for the Labour Party has over the last few years been in the hands of the National Executive of the party. The choice cannot be made by the local Labour Representation Committees, whose power at present is only to recommend and to confer with the National Executive. The National Council of the Federation of Labour now proposes that names should be put forward for ballot among all branches and affiliations of the party and that trade unions should nominate and canvass for industrial Labour nominees with known sympathy with the aims of the trade union movement.

•Selection of candidates by the National Executive of the party, instead of by local committees, as in the past, has been the cause of considerable dissatisfaction ” within the party. Trade union • leaders openly declare their disapproval of the type of candidate often selected by the party officials, and are determined that men witty a grounding in the aims 'of the trade union movement shall be placed in Parliament to express their views.

This dissatisfaction was brought to a head during the recent session of Parliament, when legislation was brought down providing for compulsory secret ballots where strikes or .lockouts are contemplated. The attitude of the Government to the trade union leadership during the passage of that legislation nearly led to open hostility between the political and industrial sections of the party. Trouble was avoided only when the legislation was amended to render it less offensive, but there has' remained among the trade unions a feeling of distrust of the political leadership.

This feeling was heightened when, as soon as trade union militancy appeared to have won its struggle for a general wage increase, the Government removed vital pegs that had been holding back the cost of living. This the trade union leadership regarded as a deliberate move to render their militancy ineffective. In the struggle for power, the Government has out-manoeuvred the militant union leadership at many points, and the Federation of Labour now feels keenly the need for stronger representation within the inner Government counsels. ' • ->- The decision to seek overhaul ot the method of selection of candidates arose out of a proposal from one-of the Trades Councils that the trade union movement should go ahead with the selection of its own industrial Labour candidates to contest elections if necessary in opposition to official Labour Party representatives. This proposition was defeated, the industrial Labour movement having not reached the stage at which it would risk putting the Government out of office. '