UNIONS DISSATISFIED

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 305, 16 March 1928, Page 10

UNIONS DISSATISFIED

INDUSTRIAL CONFERENCE INADEQUATE REPRESENTATION (From Our Own Correspondent.) Some dissatisfaction is indicated with regard to the methods of selection of the employees’s representatives for the forthcoming joint conference on til working of the Industrial, Conciliation and Arbitration Act. Commenting on the matter in conversation with a “Post” representative, an official of a number of Wellington trade unions unaffiliated with either the Trades and Labour Council or the Federation of Labour, said: ‘‘There are one or two important features in connection with the coming conference which appear to have been overlooked. I refer more particularly to the method of representation of the trade unions at the conference. “The agenda paper provided for Labour representation as under: ‘Employees, 25 members, to be divided among the following: Alliance of Labour, Trades and Labour Councils, rural workers, and unregistered and unaffiliated unions.’ “It. would appear from this that these different sections were all entitled to representation; and naturally one assumed that the affiliated bodies would have had at least the right to appoint a certain number of representatives in proportion to their numerical strength. But that is not how it actually panned out. The Alliance of Labour and the New Zealand Trades and Labour Council Federation called a national conference of affiliated and unaffiliated organisations and at that conference the whole of the 25 delegates to represent the employees’ side were elected by the whole of the conference. “This meant that the unaffiliated bodies were at a decided disadvantage in securing representation. They should, in my opinion, have had power to elect their representatives themselves from their own ranks. That would have given them real representation, which they cannot be said to have as things stand. “I do not blame the Government for leaving it to the Alliance of Labour and the Trades Council Federation to summon the unregistered and unaffiliated unions to a national conference, but I do hold that the Government should have made it clear that each section of the employees was to elect its own delegates quite independently of the other sections.”