Trades and the Workers

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 368, 31 May 1928, Page 11

Trades and the Workers

... By

"ARBITER"

UNION MEETINGS DUE

Thursday. May 31 (to-night) .. .. .. Plumbers’ Educational Thursday. May 31 (to-night) Quay Street Carriers Tuesday, June 3 Shipwrights Tuesday, June 3 Stonemason’s Special Tuesday, June 5 .. .. Tramway Workers (morning and evening)

All agreement on the terms of the old award has been made between the cenient workers and the Portland Cement Company. The rope and twine workers will bring their case for new conditions before the Conciliation Council on June 29. The Arbitration Court is hearing, the case of the Southern rope and twine workers shortly. General labourers are still hoping for a big increase in the number of men to be employed on the new Auckland station site. At present about 40 men are engaged in doing the preliminary work, but it is unticipated that as soon as the contractor gets certain details of the contract fixed up, upward of 200 men should be employed in different departments of the construction. • • * It was announced recently that. U.S.A., which is regarded in certain quarters as an industrial paradise, has the problem of unrest in a particularly acute form. In that country more than £20s00l),00l> has been sacrificed in wages in the soft coal deadlock in Pennsylvania. Ohio, and West Virginia. There are 100,000 men involved in that trouble, and 20.000 employees of the Consolidated Coal Company have been on strike for 29 months against a wage cut. Soviet Propaganda Trade union officials in Australia allege that a large amount of Soviet money is going through unions there as propaganda. One says the expensive trips to China, Russia and Japan by delegates from the Australian unions were not paid for out of the funds of the Australian trade unions. In several cases the delegates appointed have been well-known agitators who either work for the basic wage, or do no work at all. In one instance the delegate had been out of employment for months, and spent his time in doing work for the Communist Party, of which he is a member. That did not prevent him, however, from travelling first-class to Russia, and spending several months “investigating conditions” there. On his return he gave glowing accounts of the country, and spoke in the highest terms of the Soviet rule. Many of the Australian unions do not hold with the policy of the secretariat to remove national and racial barriers, which they contend is in direct contravention with the White Australian plank of the Federal Labour Party. It is expected that a move "fll be made by a number of unions, Australian ideals, against foreign influence. Why He Was Opposed A little light upon one reason why Mr - Theodore’s to leadership of the Federal Parliamentary Labour Party was opposed by certain trade unions is thrown by a statement issued by the Queensland branch of tbe Australian Railways Union. In suggesting anti-worker influences against Mr. Theodore, the statement “Queensland delegates were certainly in a position to state from experience* a number of facts relating 0 Mr. Theodore’s anti-working class chons as Premier of Queensland, */ch c °uld not be justified by either Militant or moderate Labour suppartas a qualification for the position j leader or deputy-leader of the labour Party.” Families Get 16s a Week In. i>outh Wales people are starving surrendering their food vouchhie landlord as rent. An article Published there recently stated that and women were starving—not starving; outright, but gradually wastEjj' aw ay through lack of nourishment. J. hls 13 i n the Bedwellty Parish, where Chamberlain dispensed with r 6 elected Board of Guardians on the Sfuund of extravagance and appointed °mmissioners who have drastically ut the scale of relief. The rates for an able-bodied man, nothing; r a married woman, 10s; for each finder 14, 3s. a i,-i a means that a family of a man, 'ae and two children has to live on °tal income of lbs a week.

Moral of the Conference National. Industrial Conference to the National Industrial Conference was outlined by Labour representatives on Monday evening last, when trade union executives met to hear the report of the Auckland delegates. The speakers impressed upon the meeting the fact that the bigger unions had sacrificed a good deal in order to support pro-, posals which would mean keeping in existence some of the smaller unions, which did not have the bargaining power to defend their own interests. Cases are known in which unions have deliberately deregistered from under the I.C. and A. Act for the purpose of securing an agreement, and then reregistered under the Act. These unions have agreed to forego their claims and support compulsory unionism to save jeopardising the interests of the smaller unions. The moral of the confernce, of course, was the need for industrial organisation and the close co-operation of trade unions, so that they would place themselves in a position where they would be less dependant upon the Court. The report of the delegates was adopted unanimously and a resolution of appreciation of their services passed Horrors of War One of the leaders of the Labour movement i'i New Zealand, Mr. Robert Semple, assisted by Miss Semple, his daughter, will address an audience in the Strand Theatre on Sunday evening next, on the subject of “The Ghastly Horrors of NVar.” The address will assume the form of a lantern lecture, for which the slides have been taken from photos of actual happenings on the various battlefields during the Great War, 1914-18. Those slides have never heen shown in Auckland, but have attracted large audiences in other centres. % Child Endowment Difficulty In its endeavours to inaugurate an adequate and workable scheme of child endowment, the Commonwealth Government of Australia is experiencing difficulty, chiefly because of the problem of dovetailing the scheme into the State Industrial laws. The first of the troubles would be that the Commonwealth had no direct power to fix wages. If child endowment were regarded as part of the industrial law, and as part of a readjustment of the wag"es system there would be grave difficulties in the way of the Commonwealth. Without control of the basis for fixing wages there might be great complexity in arriving at a correct formula. One possible method of proceeding with a Commonwealth plan of child endowment would be by getting the States to refer their power to the Commonwealth. Various attempts have been made to induce the States to part with their power, but without conspicuous success. It would be equally difficult to get the Commonwealth arbitration Court to make a form of additional payment to married men, because fewer married men would be employed. A Tall Order The leader of the New Zealand Labour Party. Mr. H. E. Holland, is to speak in Auckland on June 20. This probably will be Mr. Holland’s last public address before the Parliamentary session, and much should be revealed by him as to the methods of procedure which he and his followers will adopt during the three-months sitting in the Capital. City. At Greymouth this week Mr. Holland indicated a determination to pursue the set policy of Labour, and optimistically told the people what would be done for them if Labour ascended to power—State Bank, with sole right of note issue, greater tariff protection to farming industry, legislation for making fire and accident insurance a State monopoly; the establishment of the basic wage and increased family allowances; unemployment insurance: amendment of the Workers’ Compensation Act; invalidity, pensions for the aged, the widows, the blind and -the victims of miners' phthisis; organisation of the production and distribution of coal and timber; free school books and utensils, teachers’ right of appeal against nonappoinment, and so on. It sounds a tall order, and it is, but it is an indication of policy which will be submitted in November, when the people have to choose.