Trades and the Workers

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 356, 17 May 1928, Page 11

Trades and the Workers

By

“ARBITER”

UNION MEETINGS DUE

Thursday, May 17 to-night) Alliance of Labour. Thursday, May 17 (to-n.ght) Plumbers’ Educational. Saturday, May 19 Fellmongers. Monday, May -1 Hairdressers Monday, May -1 Furniture Trades Tuesday, May .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Stonemasons

600 per cent! One method of exploiting the very poor is reported from the East End of Glasgow, where, it is stated, the people a re bled remorselessly by the petty moneylenders, who wriggle in and out the slum tenements “like weasels in a stone dyke.” For £1 loaned on Monday, 22s has to be repaid on Saturday. This works out at over 600 per cent, per annum! # The Black Diamond While coal-owners in most countries are bewailing the stagnation in the industry, and when the mine workers overseas, at least —have been reduced to a semi-starvation level, it is a ray of brightness to the industry f.o have from a director of a colliery in England the following: “This is the only colliery in Northumberland and Durham that is working full time. Here each man’s average earning is 12s 4d a shift, plus a free house and coal. The co-opera-tive colliery pays 26 per cent, above the county rate, and each worker at Shilbottle gets one week’s holiday and pay.” The colliery is standing on its own legs, without assistance or subsidy from any extraneous source. The State’s Move It is good to have the assurance of the combined committee of employers and men at the National Industrial Conference that the duty of unemployment insurance lies primarily at the door of the Consolidated Fund. It is in itself something to have an acknowledgment from the accredited representatives s>f bosses and employees that the State must assist in the permanent avoidance as well as in the immediate relief of unemployment distress. Whatever the motive behind the decision of the committee, and however the members might wish to avoid the responsibility of declaring industry liable, it is palpably an indictment against the Government that composite opinion finds it obliged to move. In the relief of distress the State has done much —that has to be admitted. Its next move is toward a permanent remedy.

Workers’ Compensation One of the fruits of conciliation, •with all cards on the table, is manifest in, tho unanimous recommendation of the combined committee of the National Industrial Conference respecting unemployment and workers’ compensation. ’i-he Ontario Workmen’s Compensation Act, which has been suggested as a guide for New Zealand in industrial benefit legislation, has operated for nearly 18 years. Statistics for the 11 years show that during the years 191425, 425,647 accidents were compensated. involving a drain of 51,494,095 dollars from the accident fund. During 1925, 52,733 accidents were compensated, costing the benefit fund 5,565,443 dollars. The cases included 296 deaths, ono CaSeS ° l ' P ermanen t total disability, oo of ”, ° f permanent partial disability, 28,397 of temporary disability, and 21,986 in which medical aid only was provided. The example of Ontario has been emulated by various other Canadian States. It is noteworthy that various classes of workers, including either casual workers or farm workers (the farm units are too numerous to permit of successful administration) are generally excepted from the operation of the various Acts. New Zealand farm workers probably will have something to say about that. * * * Control By Members The Sydney District of the “Amalgamated Engineering Union refuses to be rushed into a decision on the proposal that unions shall have the unrestricted right to elect their delegates to A.L.P. conferences, and has decided that a plebiscite of its 6.000 members shall be taken at speciallysummoned meetings of the 23 branches in June, to settle the issue once and for all, as far as that union is concerned. The principle of the Amalgamated Engineering Union has always been control by members, not the executive. Mother’s Pitiful Plight Unemployment in New South Wales has reduced people to pitiful straits, and to desperate deeds. In the Criminal Court, recently, it was revealed that a woman, so poor that she could not even ask for the attention of a doctor or nurse at the time her baby was born, went out a few hours later to scrub a floor to earn a few shillings. The child died from Inattention, and the father, a labourer, aged 28, who could not afford to pay the undertaker, carried the infant’s hody in a suit-case and buried it himself. The police stated that neither the husband nor the wife had been able to get employment, and they lived in most destitute circumstances.