A NOVEL STRIKE.

Otaki Mail, Volume XXVIII, 1 November 1920, Page 4

A NOVEL STRIKE.

I LONGER HOURS WANTED. 1 i —— We kuow. to our cost, all about strikes for higher pay or shorter hours, or both', in New Zealand, as the suf t'eriug public does elsewhere, but no i one anywhere, we should imagine, ever ' heard until a few weeks ago of a strike for a longer working day. This, how* j over, .was the action taken by si me | Iwo or three hundred French workmen, engaged in reconstruction work near Compiegne. They objected to the eight-hours law. for the reusonj that it limited their earnings, end [appealed unsuccessfully to the foro- | man of the job to let them work two I extra hours daily. The correspondent who tells this story says nothing a- to the result of this unique strike, but one gathers that it did not last long. The incident only shows how much these French workers were behind the | times. Any New Zealand Labour j '.'leader" would tell them that to oh'er I to do more work for more pay is ' against all the principles of modern i labour: what they ought to have done i was to demand more money for n j shorter working day. By doing so. j they would have put themselves "on ' side" with Labour elsewhere, whereas i by the course they adopted they practically made blacklegs of themselves. 1 But all over France there seems to bo trouble over the legal eight-hours i working clay. In some of the rural uisj tricts. we are told, employers have j difficulty in procuring labour unless j they guarantee two or three hours' | overtime each day, and in large indus- \ trml centres, such as Paris, MarscU'.es. and Lyons, many workers meet i the high cost of living by working at i two differei t jobs in the 24 hours, thus I ranting double money. This perfectly I medieval way- of increasing their criming-, which in New Zealand is i only permitted to secretaries of labour ! organisations, is 'tolerated by the heads of French labour unions. Eve:the Paris policemen have adopted ii. and in their spare time act as bank : messengers, canvassers, and so'forth. I So hard is ir to eradicate from one of I the mosi industrious peoples in the j world the belief that the proper war ; to earn mere is to work more.