"NO COMPROMISE"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 116, 12 November 1938, Page 10

"NO COMPROMISE"

GLASS WORKS STRIKE

MINISTER'S ATTITUDE

REPLY TO COMMENT

A further denial that he had played any part in the sending of Mr. J. A. Gilmour, S.M., to Auckland to open negotiations for a settlement of the glass works strike was given today by the Minister of Labour (the Hon. H. T. Armstrong).

Mr. Armstrong's statement arose j from the following editorial comment in the "Christchurch Star-Sun" on Thursday last:—"lt is very much a question whether the Minister of Labour should have compromised in the glass works dispute. In this case the old award is still operative, the union had riot even filed its claim for a new award, and no dispute, in the technical sense, existed, and yet the Minister agreed to allow the Industrial Magistrate to hear the parties. If this precedent is followed in other cases the whole industrial world will speedily be in a state of chaos, because every union will demand precedence for its case and the lightning strike will become a habit. ..." MR. GILMOUR'S FUNCTIONS. "The writer of that article should have known by the statement I made on November 3 that there was no question of my having compromised in the dispute,' said Mr. Armstrong. He repeated his earlier statement that Mr. Gilmour was engaged upon performing certain functions of -the Arbitration Court which had been allocated to him under a statutory power of delegation which could be operated only by the Court itself. The statement proceeded: "If, theerfore, Mr. Gilmour is going to Auckland —and I have no information as to whether he is or not—it can only be for the purpose of discharging duties delegated to him by the Arbitration Court, and not for any other reason. I cannot, of course, anticipate any view which the Court might take as to the urgency of this particular case, but I personally know of no reason why it should , receive preference over the many other matters at (Auckland and elsewhere which are awaiting the attention of the Court."

It appeared that the Court itself had arranged for Mr. Gilmour to go to Auckland, said Mr. Armstrong. "I know that pressure had been brought to bear on the Court by the representatives of both the employers and the workers to acij as it did; nevertheless, to my mind it was entirely wrong," he continued. "It should be explained, of course, that the other unions on the Court's waiting list were not affected by the arrangement, because it happened that Mr. Gilmour had a couple of days free between his Christchurch and Wellington cases, but that is not the point.

"The impression left is that if a union wants an early hearing of its case before the Court or before Mr. Gilmour it has only to stage a strike. Unions that have been on the waiting list for months have protested against the glass workers getting preference, and in my opinion they have just cause for complaint. I sincerely hope that preference will not be given in the future to unions in such circumstances. I certainly was not a party to the arrangement made in the recent case. I have enough to do to answer for my own sins without being held responsible for other people's."