Trades and the Workers

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 60, 2 June 1927, Page 10

Trades and the Workers

BY BOXWOOD

UNION MEETINGS DUE

ARBITRATION COURT

Next sittings not fixed yet. CONCILIATION COUNCILS N.Z. Federated Coachbuilders* and Wheelwrights’ Union (at Wellington) June 7. Auckland Builders’ Labourers’ Union (Quarry and Scoria Pit Section) —June 9. Auckland Female Bookbinders’ Union —June 13. The Trades and Labour Council is holding a special meeting to-night to consider the question of organisation and the Alliance of Labour merger. The painting trade is suffering from the prevailing stringency, but what adds most to the difficult situation is the influx of tradesmen from the country. * <: * The Conciliation Council which was to have considered the Auckland Female Bookbinders’ dispute on Tuesday last was adjourned until June 14 owing to the employers not having received sufficient notice. No fewer than 400 members of the General Labourers’ Union have been crossed off the union’s books. They are unemployed, and so short of money that they are unable to pay their union dues. * * * Only 20 men are now regularly employed of all the members of the Kauri Gum Workers’ Union. But they have not left the industry for ever. They are highly skilled experts in their line and when the stores are cleared and the industry in a better condition they will take it up again. “Once a gum worker always a gum worker.” No Trouble from Communists.—The Communist aim to “white ant” unionism has been the subject of disclosures and comments in Wellington and Christchurch lately, but the Auckland adherents to that particular theory have given the unions very little trouble. When they come to their union meetings they are very tractable. Auckland sees most of its Communists on Quay Street, and for the sake of the harmless amusement they provide they really ought to be subsidised by the City Council. The Painters' Leaders. —Nomintaions for official posts in the Painters’ Union were taken on Monday last. The president, Mr. T. Jackson, the vice-presi-dent, Mr. D. Mclntosh, and the secretary, Mr. H. Campbell, were all elected unopposed. There will be an election for the committee next meeting, June 13. The following names are forward: R. J. Shurrock, F. Emmot, L. Tester, R. Davis, T. Birmingham, J. Howarth, and A. Danks. Reports of the Easter conference in Dunedin are to hand and will be before the meeting. A New Union. —The newly-formed Confectionery Workers’ Union is getting down to business. There has been some difficulty in obtaining its registration owing to the Condiment and Drug Workers’ Union including biscuit and confectionery workers in their full title. That union has now consented to its title being recast, so the registration may now proceed. A social and dance is to be held in the Trades Hall on June 23, when the objects of the union will be discussed. Steps have now been taken to obtain a Dominion award for biscuit and confectionery workers.

On the Backward List. Fifteen years ago New Zealand led the world in progressive legislation. To-day the Dominion is listed with Ethiopia, Persia, Liberia, Guatemala, Haiti and half a dozen other doubtfully civilised nations as having given the International Labour Bureau no data and no information to- assist in the improvement in the general conditions of wage-earners throughout the world. The Dominion has a mine of information from legislative experiments which it should put at the disposal of the bureau. Anything which goes toward raising the standard of living in Antananarivo reacts very clearly to the improvement of the standards of wageworkers in Auckland.

Slump in Ironworking Trades.—lndustrial affairs at present are a serial story of unemployment. A union official in the ironworking trades declares that in his experience, covering a

period of 17 to 20 years, there has never been so many unemployed among moulders and boilermakers —and never a worse outlook. Yet workers in these trades are still being immigrated to this country and work is still being sent out of the country. Consider all the steelwork orders that have gone out of the country through the Government’s railway building orders. Some of that work could have been well done in the Dominion. At present boilermakers in New Zealand are practically dependent on accident business. Lack of orders has resulted in half the boilermakers being put off at Thames, and the same fate seems to await the moulders. Last winter there was a run on grocery rations at these unionists’ headquarters at the Trades Hall. Too Many Officials. —lt is a frequent complaint in Labour circles that unionism in the Dominion is secretary-rid-den. Out of a healthy fund of £24,000 collected by 430 unions only £4,000 is left after salaries and other expenses have been met. It seems a good argument for the organisation of unions under one control with a secretary at each centre. A prominent trades union official, who is a keen supporter of the One Big Union idea, remarks that though it would eliminate a great wastage, there is to be takeu into account the fact that organising would still necessarily occupy a uarge number of officials. A great many secretaries seem to think that One Big Union would put some of them out navvying, and that is why they oppose the idea. But it would obviate the necessity of a man going about with a pocekt full of union tickets. Labour Banks. —The innovation of Labour Banks in the United States and their rapid development since 1920 makes interesting reading. At the close of June 30 of last year the total deposits in 36 Labour Banks amounted to 110,875,791 dollars. This enormous accumulation of money is the result of six years’ effort, and certainly augurs well for the future. The Union Labour Life Insurance Company is now also actively preparing for the .opening business, the necessary arrangements for an expert staff being already made. These excursions into finance should be suggestive to wage-workers of New Zealand in view of the banking position in the Dominion. It must be remembered that the Government is the largest shareholder in the Bank of New Zealand, and that this bank accounts for 50 per cent, of New Zealand’s banking. Sympathetic administration of this bank would not necessitate the introduction of Labour Banks, but experience has shown that the Government is ever on the side of investors, as indicated by the fairly substantial profits made by the Bank of New Zealand.

The Small Farmer Doomed. —There are good grounds for the assertion that the key to the political future in New Zealand is the small farmer. Here is the position, according to R. P. Anschutz, the author of an article on New Zealand and the Empire in the May number of the “Labour Monthly”; “The prosperity of New Zealand is the prosperity of its small farmers, and these small farmers are doomed. Sooner or later they must become either large farmers or farm labourers. This process is well under way. . . . “ The small farmer cannot carry on without mortgages, and even with mortgages his chances of success are estimated to be so poor that he cannot raise money in the open market. Even if he does he becomes simply a labourer for finance capital, liable to eviction without a penny for years of work should a fall in prices occur. From figures given by the ‘New Zealand Year Book’ for 1926 it may be calculated that between 1919 and 1925 (inclusive) mortgages were raised on 37,000,000 acres, that is, 84.4 per cent, of the total occupied area. At this rate the whole of the occupied rural land in New Zealand is mortgaged every 8.3 years. It is plainly evident that the isolation which has enabled New Zealand to become a home of prosperous small farmers is breaking down. Finance capital is taking charge and is ushering in industrial capitalism. The expropriated small farmer is poviding an increasingly large supply of factory labour. The unexpropriated small farmer is sinking to the position of a' farm labourer working for the banks. In 20 years’ time New Zealand will have something else to think about.”

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