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Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 266, 2 April 1913, Page 4

COMPULSORY UNIONISM. A case that came before the local Magistrate's Court yesterday affords a striking example 1 of the extreme to which the Industrial Arbitration Act is being pushed in the interests of trade-unionism. It is true that one of tiie objects of that Statute was to encourage the formation of industrial unions, and the reason for this was that it was believed that organisations would be more easily dealt with than isolated individuals when there was any matter in dispute between employers and workers. But it certainly Was never the intention of Parliament that the Act should be employed as an instrument of coercion—a means of compelling men to join a trade-union under pain of losing their employment. This is really what the "preference to unionists" clause in the industrial awards amounts to. Taken in conjunction with the provisions of the Act regulating the formation of unions, that clause imposes a tyranny of the most odious kind upon workers. It is possible for a small minority of those engaged in an unorganised trade to form an industrial union, obtain an agreement or award, and compel the majority, willy-nilly, to join the union or he thrown out of employment. This is a most dangerous power to put into the hands of a few men, who may he deficient in intelligence and in sense of justice. It is totally opposed to democratic principles that a ,minority should have power to. coerce a majority; and it is contrary to all ideas of human freedom that a majority, no matter how powerful, should compel a single individual to join an organisation to which he objects, under pain of being shut out from earning a livelihood. Of course, as the Inspector of Awards contended in Court yesterday, there is no actual compulsion to join the union; the law exercises no coercion, hut simply punishes for a breach of award. This is a distinction as subtle as that which used to he made in cases of imprisonment for debt—tha debtor was not punished because of his inability to pay, hut for contempt in not obeying the order of the Court. Xon-unionist workers will be penalised until the unjust and oppressive system of enforcing preference to unionists is abolished. Tf at any time trade-union-ists deserved to have special consideration shown them by the Arbitration Court they have forfeited their claim by repeatedly flouting the law and their own rules by striking without notic?. The right of efficient workers to live by their handicraft must, at all hazards, be vindicated, if the country is to make good its claim to be free and democratic. Mr. Massey will do well to give attention to this phase of the industrial problem.