THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1947. A CHALLENGE TO UNIONISM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26636, 5 December 1947, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1947. A CHALLENGE TO UNIONISM

One of the many evils which has been invited by the spate of industrial legislation that has been passed in recent years was referred to at the annual meeting of the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Engineering Workers’ Union. The particular complaint of this union is that the successive pronouncements of the Court of Arbitration have considerably reduced the margin in wages between skilled and unskilled workers, and that industry is suffering in consequence of the lack of incentive for young workers to acquire skill. The grievance is a legitimate and tenable one, but neither this nor any other union can delude itself that total redress lies in the authority of the Court of Arbitration. The Court, in arriving at any decision on rates of remuneration, must take earnest consideration of the ability of the-industry and the national economy to support upward adjustments in the scale of wages as well as the economic handicaps that bear heavily on the lower-paid workers, and the resultant trend has been towards the levelling of wagescales that forms the basis of the present complaint. The Court has no esoteric and magical formula for transforming New Zealand into an industrial nirvana; it must deal with hard facts—the facts that so many unions have forgotten in their militant progress towards a silver goal.

The proper . spirit of unionism is one of independence, of active and intelligent democracy, and of the ready acceptance of responsibilities in return for material and other rewards that may accrue from collective bargaining. This was the spirit that pervaded the old guilds, and later sustained the unions of craftsmen who laboured so conscientiously for recognition of the principle of an adequate reward for good work and high production. This crusading spirit has, unfortunately, been . lost. Old unionists have watched it go and have deplored its passing, but their voices have been drowned in the clamour of aggress-ively-led unions which, tolerated by a pliant Government, openly hold industry and the whole country to blackmail without fear of check or discipline. This modern movement offers little that is constructive either to workers or management. Its leadership often betrays the inspiration of an industrial and political philosophy that is foreign to these shores and foreign to the democratic principles of true unionism. And, as must be expected, it is the unionists themselves who are suffering most in the industrial conflict that has been precipitated. The Wellington branch of the Engineers’ Union is not the only one that has jfiven voice to its hurts. The National,Executive of the New Zealand Carpenters’ Union last month bluntly affirmed that “blind allegiance to- a political party . . . was not in keeping with the spirit of trade unionism. Our independence must be maintained at all times. Only in this way can we hope to advance to a new social order.” In that resolution lies the present-day challenge to the unions. It is up to them to decide whether they are prepared to co-operate in building an industrial structure based on mutual goodwill and recognition of the dignity' and the relative worth of labour.