I.—9a.

20

[h. C. REVELL.

paying ss. a day in wages and he suddenly finds his workers asking for a rise to 7s. or Bs., he does not hail that proposition with joy, and he looks upon the men who are acting as leaders in that movement as a kind of personal enemy; and unfortunately we have found, as I intend to show presently, that our union has suffered very considerably owing to what may be called intimidation, though the employers will not admit that it is; nevertheless, to speak plainly, it is intimidation. As I said, while our union was being formed we had these two outsiders. It is rather a funny thing that under the 1900 Act, under which we were registered, a union was not protected until it had filed a dispute. That Act said that as soon as a dispute was filed the officers who were members of the union were protected; but prior to that the members had no protection whatever in this respect—in fact an employer could go and say to an employee, "Your opinions and mine differ very much on industrial matters; we had better part." The law in those days did not say that he should not do that sort of thing. It has been amended since. After our union had been registered, out of deference to the wishes of the employees we appointed a president who was enrpkyyed in the industry, and I was the person appointed. I was appointed also to represent the union before the Conciliation Board and the Arbitration Court. After the Conciliation Board had delivered its recommendations and before the Court sat 1 got a week's pay in lieu of notice. I had been employed in the industry, I might say, for only about eighteen months. I went there as a casual hand and I suited the place very well, and as long as I was prepared and willing to accept £1 10s. a week —I was a married man with a wife to keep—and say nothing, I had, you might almost say, a port-admiral's job. I had a nice rosy billet. But as soon as I took up the cudgels for the workers and took off my coat in their interests, I could do nothing right, and the Kaiapoi Company, in following their policy of getting rid of me, stuck to it until at last they found ways and means of getting me out of the industry, and out I went. Mine was not an isolated case, because we appointed a secretary who also was employed in the industry. He had been upwards of twelve years in the woollen-mills at Kaiapoi. He was instructed by the union to take some steps to bring about an application for enforcement of award. As soon as he had notified the memebrs—on the same day, 3'ou might say the same hour as the notices were received by the members of the union, some 340 odd —he got a week's notice, and was told that the company had come to the conclusion that a boy could do the work he had been doing, and that in future the work would be done by a boy. The oompany found a big strapping lump of a boy who did the work for awhile, but they had ultimately, I think, to employ a man to do it. My reason for stating these facts has been to show that it does not matter what may be said to the contrary, there is a large amount of intimidation being carried on by employers towards unionists. I regret very much to have to say this. I would rather see things differently, but there it is. When a man takes off his coat in the interests of his fellow-workers he must in the ordinary course of events, if he is honest and straightforward in the cause of the workers, come into conflict with his employers. It was necessary in our case to have a union of the woollen-mill employees. The highest wage that a male adult worker was getting in the Kaiapoi factory—that is, an unskilled labourer—was, I think, £1 10s. a week, with holidays deducted. It was a weekly engagement, and the holidays were taken out. Many men were working for '£1 10s. a week, £1 135., and £1 7s. 6d., and some men worked in the Kaiapoi factory fifty-four hours a week for 16s. Now the Kaiapoi Company will tell you, and they have stated it publicly in the newspapers, that there was no need for unionism in the Kaiapoi Mills. Now I wish to show how the Kaiapoi Company dealt with their men while the latter were unorganized. The Chairman : What was the date of organization ? Witness: Our union was registered on the 13th April, 1901. On the Bth June, 1899, the men employed in the spinning department at Kaiapoi had become so dissatisfied with the conditions under which they were working — and they were working under most adverse conditions, for they were constantly doing night-work, and, I think, £1 7s. 6s. a week was the highest rate of pay they received — that they decided to approach the manager in a body. They knocked off work and went down to the office and said to the manager, " We are not satisfied with the wages we are getting and the conditions under which we are working; we would like you to give us an advance on the rate of pay we are receiving." He immediately told them to get off the premises till the matter was settled. He explained to the Conciliation Board that he did not "sack" these men; that he only locked them out until they came to terms—the terms being to accept what they had been receiving or to remain away altogether. Well, that position cropping up was the cause of the union being formed. The men were absolutely driven in self-preservation to form a union of workers. So universal had the feeling in the mill become, that there were three separate bodies of men in the mill forming a union. The Chairman: Simultaneously? Witness: Simultaneously. We found that some had gone to the Labour Department for information as to procedure and some to the Trades Council. We got to hear of this, and we kept them in the rear so as to prevent an Industrial Union of Spinners or Industrial Union of Weavers coming to light, and we pushed in a union embracing the whole industry of the Canterbury District. The first night the union met there were 343 members signed the roll. That only left two men and the foremen in the mill who had not joined the union. We have lost, in fighting our case before the Board and the Court, the president—that is, myself; I got a week's pay in lieu of notice. Then the vice-president was removed from the industry. The secretary was removed because they suddenly discovered, after twelve years, that a boy could do his work. The treasurer has also been removed from the industry —ostensibly because they discovered that he was not a competent man, or something of that sort, although he went to the Roslyn Mills and obtained a boss job there. We have lost three committeemen, who have been removed from the industry. It is rather more than a coincidence that of tire six representatives we have had