PROBLEM OF TRUSTS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXV, Issue 8215, 12 August 1915, Page 8

PROBLEM OF TRUSTS.

EXEMPTION OF TRADE UNIONS.

Many New, Zealanders will be interested in the reasons given tor the exemption of trades unions from the new American anti-trust law. Here they are:— ' .

'• That tho labour of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce. Nothing contained in the antitrust laws shall be construed to forbid the existence and operation of labour, agricultural, or horticultural organisations, instituted for the purpose , of mutual help, and not having capital stock or conducted for profit, or to forbid or restrain individual members of such organisation from lawfully carrying out the legitimate objects thereof; nor shall such organisations, or the members thereof, be held or construed to be illegal combinations or conspiracies in restraint of trade, under the anti-trust laws."

■Tho sections regulating injunctions provide that no Federal Court can issue a restraining order in any labour dispute unless necessary to prevent irreparable injury to property, or to a property right, for which there is no adequate remedy at law, and such property or property right must be described "with particularity" and sworn to in the application for a writ.

No injunction can be issued for the following reasons:—

To prohibit any person or persons, whether singly or in concert, from ceasing work or urging others so to do.

To prohibit any person or persons from " attending at any place where any siich person or- persons may lawfully bo, for the purpose of peacefully obtaining or communicating information, or from peacefully persuading any person to work or to abstain from working." To prohibit any person from withholding their patronage from any party to .a labour dispute,' or "from recommending, advising, or persuading others by peaceful and lawful means so to do."

To prohibit the payment of strike benofits oi "other moneys or things of value" to persons engaged in labour disputes. To prohibit peaceful assembling in p. lawful manner and for lawful purposes. To prohibit any act which might be lawfully done if no strike existed. It is further provided that none of the acts specified above shall.be " considored or held to be violations of any 'law of.the United States."

Under this section strikers are nl- | lowed to do peaceful picketing, to urge .other wor'nnen to join them, to urge a withholding of patronage from those parties to tlie dispute, and to assemble in a peaceful manner to discuss their grioranccs. Jury trials are provided for anyone charged with indirect contempt (disobeying the order of the Court. .outside the presence of the Court). This does not apply to offences committed in the presence of the Court— indecorum, disrespect, disorderly conduct, etc. The law ■ npnlius to all Federal Courts, and is intended to nut an end to injunction orders of the Judge Day- | ton kind, where, workers have been en- ! joined from attempting to organise non-unionists without the consent of emoloyers. Tho Hochivfvtion that the labour power of a human bein<«; is not a coromnoMty means that henceforth new id»n's will be th« n^o in tho treattnfit of workers hv Whlntivn and inrlicial bodies r>f the United St°t"s. r fir-t t>at should be borne- in mind by Australasian legislators,,-