LABOR TROUBLES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 120, 30 August 1910, Page 5

LABOR TROUBLES.

m —. AN IMPORTANT JUDGMENT. CAUSES SENSATION IN AMERICA. By Cable. —Press Association.—Copyright New York, August 28. A sensation has been caused among the Labor Party here by Judge Golf's decision that a labor union, in ordering a strike and enforcing the closing of works', violates law 625 of the Constitution. SLAUGHTERMEN'S STRIKE DRAGGING ON. Received August 29,1L25 p.m. Sydney, August 29. There is no sign of the slaughtermen's! strike endi&g.. The only solution appears to lie in the determination of the Wages Board. Both sides have draft claims for submittal to the Board. The men include preference to unionists. THREATENED SEAMEN'S STRIKE. DISCREDITED IN ENGLAND. I Received August 29, 9.35 p.m. London, August 29.

Reuter's Copenhagen correspondent 'states that the decision in favor of the

principle of a strike is intended to bci operative only in the event of the failure of negotiations with ship-owneds. The Times' enquiries show that seamen in London are not disposed to take the threat of an international strirke, very seriously, although there is now! widespread discontent with the conditions whereunder they work. A WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENT. Mir. J. Havelock Wilson, the wellknown representative of the British seamen, has been busily engaged in bringing ahout the establishment of conciliation boards for seamen for some time. Tn its issue of June 21, the Cardiff correspondent of the Times said:— "•Mr. J. Havelock Wilson, president of the National Sailors' and Firemen's Union of the United Kingdom and of the International Seafarers' Union, is engaged in organising a world-wide movement on behalf of seamen which may! have most momentous results. After his j tour of America, Mr. Wilson is about to engage in a tour of the ports. As a preliminary, the International Union are taking steps, to be recognised by the shipowners and to consent to conciliation or similar boards for the regulation of wages. The replies of the shipowners are to be received at Copenhagen on August 20, and in the event of a general strike, camps will ibe organised outside each of the great ports. "A* manifesto has been issued demanding a uniform wage at all ports, a minimmum living wage, a manning scale, assistance for ships' cooks owing to the increase of work imposed by the new food scale of the last Merchant Shipping Act, the right of seamen to have union officials present when articles are signed, ■ the right to claim two-thirds of wages due at the end of each month, the abolition of medical examinations and the placing of the doctors' stamp on sailors who have passed. • ■ . j "The Cardiff, Barry and Newport) branches of the Seamen's Union are pushing on the work of organisation pre-! paratory to a great struggle. Mr. Damm, I the Cardiff secretary, states that the work of organisation is proceeding thor-j oughly, the men are enthusiastic and j j united, and are waiting for Mr. Have- ( lock Wilson's plan of campaign. There is no question of a strike until it is known whether the shipowners will de-; cline to meet the man in conference as 1 desired. If tried, he thinks, the pro-; posed conciliation board would prevent; strikes as the similar organisation has' done in the coalfields, besides regulating wages and benefiting all concerned. Sailors only want.a living wage, decent conditions, treatment as free men, and; not to be branded as slaves.

"While not attaching much importance to the seamen's international movement, the Shipping Federation are fully prepared for all contingencies. They state that the men have gained nothing from the Seamen's Union during all the years of its existence, while the federation, even before the Compensation Act applied to seamen, gave them accident and other benefits. The question of wages has been left to individual owners, and the federation have only undertaken to provide men who would not object to work beside other men. Medical tests were for the protection of owners, and there is no branding in this country. The Shipping Federation now extends to most of the principal maritime countries, and an attack by the Seamen's Union would 'be met by the employment of men willing to work at the wages offered at any particular port. The federation will undertake to protect the men who are willing to work at the rate of wages offered at any particular port. Such men, the federation state, are free in the fullest sense, which cannot be said of the union men; the medical examinations are paid for iby the federation, and no enquiry is made whether the inen are union men or otherwise."