Trades and the Workers

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 298, 8 March 1928, Page 13

Trades and the Workers

By

“ARBITER”

UNION MEETING DATES Thursday, March S (to-night) Engineers’ Union Smoko. Saturday, March 10 Fellmongers. Mondajr, March 12 Painters. Monday, March 12 ... ... .... Saddlers. Tuesday, March 13 Storemen. Tuesday, March 13 . . Timber Workers. Wednesday, March 14 L.R.C. Wednesday, March 14 ...... Gas Employees.

Mr. T. Bloodworth, secretary of the Carpenters and Joiners’ Union, is in Wellington watching the interests of his men before the Conciliation Council. He should return before the end of the week. * * * The United Furniture Trades will hold the annual,picnic at Motutapu Island on Saturday. Unemployed financial members receive special picnic concessions. * * * The annual meeting of the gas employees is to be held on Wednesday next. The report of the year’s operations will be presented, and the financial position of the organisation, as well as membership and domestic administration, will be discussed. Mr. W. J. Jordan, M.P. for Manukau, will be present Not Much Better Most of the union secretaries around the Trades Hall report: “Things are slightly better —though not much.” The secretary of the United Furniture Trades, Mr. A. H. Dixon, says: “Prosperity has not knocked at our door yet, and our men are still having the same bad time.” The complaint of the General Labourers’ secretary, Mr. J. Sutherland, is that as soon as the skilled tradesmen are thrown out of work they become general labourers. “It would not be so bad if they joined the union,” he said, “but they don’t. They just scab on the general labourer and push him out of the job he should be filling.” Unemployment Insurance General labourers belonging to the union are to be assembled in Auckland on Wednesday, April 4, for the purpose of discussing the principle of unemployment insurance. Labour members of Parliament from this district will address the men and expound to them the lines upon which the Labour members in the House of Representatives have endeavoured to introduce legislation providing for a permanent insurance against unemployment hardship. Mr. P. Fraser, member for Wellington Central, has had a scheme in mind for some years, but as it is an appropriation on State funds, the Standing Orders of Parliament will not allow it to be proceeded with. Endeavours will be made this year to have the Government take over the Bill and mould it on similar lines, and introduce it during the 1928 session. * * * Germ of Discord Some members of the Waterside Workers’ Union are not pleased with an unpleasant note which was sounded in one little corner of the stop-work meeting on Tuesday morning. The bug of nationality afid religion apparently has crept in the union circle, and one man, whom all watersiders I must know, has been more loquacious than discreet, and complained bitterly that if Irishmen were allowed to fill certain positions, Germans also should have a voice in the union’s affairs. This outburst caused one of his fellows to ask whether the organisation was a union of workers or a sectarian club. It is unfortunate that such a spirit should actuate the deliberations of a body of unionists with a membership of something like 1,300. Mr. H. E. Holland was right when he said in Auckland recently: “Labour can win only if there is unity and co-operation among the workers.” * * * Primary Industries The primary industries of New Zealand are to be well represented on the committee, which will sit in Wellington at the end of this month to determine in what measure the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act can be amended, and the workers in the industries, as well as the employers, are busy preparing data which will be placed before the representatives when the time comes for the conference. Mr. J. P. John, secretary of the dairy factory employees at Auckland, who perhaps knows as much about the industry as anyone engaged in it at the present time, is having a strenuous time in getting ready the men’s case. As he says: “The men might as well be allowed to organise under the law, as in their own way.” * * * Specialised Apprentices The embarrassment which is frequently occasioned through parents placing boys as apprentices in highly specialised trades was emphasised re-

cently when a dispute occurred between the United Furniture Trades Union, and a firm coming within the apope of this award. The firm went into liquidation, and seven apprentices were thrown on to the street. One went to Australia when redress was unprocurable, and the others clung tenaciously to the hope that they would receive something of the company’s payment of 3s in the £. The dispute has been settled, and the boys have been given a month’s wages, the company being relieved from its apprenticeship obligations. The secretary of the union, Mr. A. H. Dixon, says that many parents are inclined to place their boys into highly specialised lines irrespective of the prospects for advancement when they come out of their time. * 9 * The Only Solution It is pleasing to observe that at least one trade has not waited for the Government to act toward securing closer co-operation between the two sides of industry, but has undertaken to bring worker and boss together as a try out, to see what can be gained by an informal conference. The State should have acted long ago. Mr. Shailer Weston, in his position of president of the Employers’ Federation, told the authorities two years ago that co-operation and conciliation, rather than force and endurance tests, would provide the only solution of the industrial problem. Some advice on this point was given by Mr. C. H. Poole when speaking to the Auckland Rotary Club this week. “In Aunerica,” he said, “these huge industrial concerns are partly owned by the workers themselves. They have a share in the wealth they are producing, and are part of the huge firms for which they give their labour.” Labour in New Zealand has a very deep-rooted distrust of anything savouring of piece work or payment by results, however, and it will be interesting to see if conferences can bring about a state of things whereby master and man can walk hand in hand. • * * Labour Divided This speaks for itself on questions in Australia:—“Unless unity is brought about, Labourites may as well regard the next Federal elections with dismay,” says a statement issued by the Australian Workers’ Union to its members. “Divided as the Labour movement is in New South Wales, another term of power for the present Government is inevitable. “The present executive in New South Wales,” the statement proceeds, “by its unconstitutional flouting of the Federal executive and the Canberra resolutions of last year, has created a position which is a menace to the Labour movement throughout Australia.”