The Sun MONDAY, JUNE 18, 1928. LOSS OF A MILLION POUNDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 383, 18 June 1928, Page 8

The Sun MONDAY, JUNE 18, 1928. LOSS OF A MILLION POUNDS

IT is estimated that the Australian marine cooks’ strike cost £1,000,000. That loss is in itself bad enough, but the damage caused by the disruption of essential shipping services for fifteen weeks cannot be assessed in monetary terms. No one can estimate the misery such strikes inflict on the dependants of the workers directly and indirectly by protracted idleness. The real victims of these industrial upheavals are silent sufferers. Indeed, it is to be regretted that in all the political schemes for eliminating strikes and establishing peace in industry there has never been a definite proposal to make a law by which, in the event of a strike, the pay of trade union leaders and professional agitators would cease automatically with their union’s cessation of work. This would tend to encourage many of these eloquent loafers on industrial unionism to be less glib in their advocacy of revolt, and once strife had been started, would also make them more ardent in effort at bringing it to a quick end. The Australian maritime cooks’ strike began in folly and finished in failure. Its end was as ignominious as it was inevitable. The strikers were forced to surrender. They gained nothing, except the knowledge that once more, they had been as asses led by donkeys into a field of burnt thistles. If this lesson were to be taken to heart, their stupidity might be forgiven, but experience has proved that many industrial unionists, particularly in Australia, are not easily taught wisdom. The cooks were so ill-advised throughout their hold-up of coastal shipping that their union defied the Australasian Council of Trade Unions and ignored timely advice to abandon a hopeless fight. As a Sydney.journal observed the attempt of the Marine Cooks’ Union to become a law unto itself may have been magnificent, but it was not unionism. If there is to be no sense of discipline in trade unionism, then the future of organised industrial Labour holds little prospect of peace and goodwill in industry. The sheet anchor of unionism is the old law that the majority must rule, even though the minority might be right in its argument and actions. It is quite clear that industrial unionism in Australia, and particularly in New South Wales, is sorely in need of wise leadership. Its history is littered with futile strikes, and also with strife within its own ranks. It lias been suggested that much of the trouble in recent years has been due to the activities of ambitious agitators who exploit industrial unionism for political opportunity and power. There appears to be a great deal of evidence in support of that suggestion. It is at least certain that far too many people in Australia believe that prominent agitation in trade unionism is an effective training for national politics. There are some disadvantages in the occasional rise of a soap-box orator to the top of statesmanship. In any case industrial unionism, as directed and practised in Australia, has become a discredited movement. It may aim at progress, but it succeeds only in hitting disaster. Instead of the various unions working harmoniously and honestly together for the benefit of the workers as a whole, they quarrel with one another, and precipitate strife with employers on the faintest shadow of a grievance. One set of leaders calls another set a party of bushrangers, and there is no wisdom in any of them. It is to be hoped that the maritime unions and waterside workers will make the best of a bad bargain and get back to true unionism.