Trades and the Workers

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 96, 14 July 1927, Page 12

Trades and the Workers

BY

BOXWOOD

UNION MEETINGS DUE

Furniture Trades July IS Hairdressers July IS Butchers July 18 Plasterers July 20 Boiler-Makers July 21 Alliance of Labour July 21

Mr. P. Hally, Conciliation Commissioner, is in Wellington. Mr. W. Miller, secretary of the Storemen’s Union, will be out of town until next week.

Mr. Tom Bloodworth is a cot case just now. He has been confined to bed with mouth trouble. The conference of the New Zealand Timberworkers’ Federation has been postponed from July 19 to August 2. Biscuit Workers’ Dispute.—Registration of the Biscuit Workers’ Federation has been effected. A Dominion dispute will be heard by a Conciliation Council in Wellington on July 28. Mr. J. Purtell, secretary of the Auckland union, will go South to attend the council. Brick and Tile Federation.—A conference of brick and tile workers will be held in Wellington soon to draft proposals for a Dominion award following on the formation of a Dominion federation. Mr. H. Gillam and Mr. F. Norton will represent the Auckland union, which has about 200 members. * * * Milk Roundsmen's Hours.—A conference is being held to-day between the milk vendors and the dairy employees on the question of the early start and the advisability or otherwise of having amendments made to the Shops and Offices Act, to allow it. A Letter to Mr. Coates.—Following a trip through the timber districts, Mr. E. J. Phelan, secretary to the Timberworkers’ Union, has written to the Prime Minister on his observations of the disastrous state of the timber industry and its ruinous effects on business generally. Things have undoubtedly reached a climax and unless something is done to revive milling, not only it, but capital lavishly invested in other business depending on the stability of the major industry, will be lost. In his letter Mr. Phelan advocated a duty of 8s a hundred superficial feet on imported sawn timber of 12in by 12in, or its equivalent. On timber of greater dimension he has advocated a duty of only 3s per hundred superficial feet. The former class of junk timber would be broken down in the Dominion, and so absorb some of the unemployed timberworkers. Other suggestions put to the Prime Minister were that a special loan should be raised to meet advances for workers’ dwellings, for which applications have been in a disheartening long time; that railway freights should be lowered on white pine (or butters), and that universal building by-laws should be promulgated under which all houses built would be certificated on the class of timber put into them so that inferior timbers could be used without any subterfuge. # When L. D. Nathan and Sons, Ltd., took over Brown Barrett Ltd., the amalgamation threw a large number of old hands of Brown, Barrett’s Ltd., out of work, including a dozen storemen, some of whom had put in a life’s work in the firm. Wages on Government Works.— Speaking on unemployment and relief works in the House recently the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. H. E. Holland, quoted some examples of how the cooperative contract system on relief works sometimes acts to keep wages down. He took the case of four parties working on the Buller Gorge Railway. Ther was a general promise, lie said, that men unable to get above the 9s and 12s a day rate owing to the country in which they were working, would have their wages made up to that rate. Nevertheless in the case of No. 1 party included in which were several married men, their wages continued at the rate of 6s 8d a day without increase. In the case of No. 2 party they earned 9s a day until their rate was reduced from 3s 3d a cubic yard all round to a rate which drove them off the job. No. 3 party was earning 15s 2d a day, so their rate was reduced from 2s 6d to Is Bd. In the case of No. 4 party, the men were earning 12s a day. Their rate was reduced by Is Id a cubic yard, and now they are earning only 8s a day. Coming nearer to Auckland, Mr. Holland quoted to the House that there were men on the Westfield deviation at piece-work rates who were unable to make more than 6s and 7s a day. On the Auckland Main Road conditions under which men were working were reported to be most pitiful. Mr. Holland told the House of a case on the Ngahauranga Gorge —Tawa Flat road where a man had four pence to draw for a fortnight’s work, after he had paid his fortnight’s food bill. The Leader of the Labour Party then stirred the Government up over its immigration policy.

. Time Payment Bondage.—Sane business men on the council of the Auck-

land Chamber of Commerce have raised a voice against those insidious evils — time payment systems. And not before due for these systems are permeating commerce and the present Chattels Transfer Act is practically useless to prevent the spread of this most uneconomic lure. Consider how it is working out in America, where the public have been encouraged to buy from its manufacturers £1,200 millions worth of goods on credit. Its debt to retailers at a given time is £550 millions. This is where a danger to working class movement lies, according to Mr. H. G. Adam, recently in America with the Australian Industrial Mission, so many of the workers are in debt that they will work under almost any conditions for almost any number of hours if it means extra pay. So far, have they pledged their wages that they cannot risk their job and are as securely under the thumb as if they were indentured. This curse has scared the best American economists and financiers. It has been said that America’s greatest problem is the insolvency of 80 per cent, of its homes. Time payment systems would never get so firmly entrenched in New Zealand, but they do now constitute a menace which should be watched carefuHy. Tramway Elections. —To-morrow the voting takes place for the election of officers for the Tramways’ Union. There is considerable competition for offices, and eight different ballots on the preferential voting system are conducted. Spare a sigh for the unfortunate votecounters. * * «= State Your Reasons.—The Tramwaymen’s brush with the Mayor, Mr. George Baildon, was advanced further by a resolution of the annual meeting held on Tuesday. The men resolved that the Mayor be asked to state his reasons for refusing an inquiry into allegations in connection with the management.. The Mayor’s rely to the union’s previous deputation was a short note arbitrarily refusing to carry the subject any further. The Arapuni Judgment.—Herein is the written judgment of the Arbitration Court in the Arapuni cause celebre. Question I.—ls the Sir W. G. Arm-strong-Whitworth Company- entitled to enter into further agreements with craft unions? Question 2.—ls the company entitled to enter into any further agreements with the General Labourers’ Union ether than with the New Zealand Workers’ Union? OPINION OF THE COURT, DELIVERED BY HIS HONOUR MR. JUSTICE FRAZER 1. —Yes. The industrial agreements entered into between Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth, Ltd., and the New Zealand Workers’ Union are binding only on the company and on the union and its members. The company is a party to the awards to which the craft unions are parties, and has been granted a special exemption from the conditions of those awards, subject to the terms of employment of its craft workers being not less favourable than those contained in the New Zealand Workers' Union agreement. The court can amend the conditions of exemption on the joint application of the company and the union or unions concerned. 2. —The company is not a party to the. General Labourers’ Award or the Drivers’ Award. Its labourer and drivers are covered by the industrial agreement with the New Zealand Workers’ Union, and it would be impossible for it to enter into agreements with other unions in respect of these workers, for it could not observe a number of different agreements covering the same classes of work. The provisions as to preference, for example, would certainly conflict.