TRADE & LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 43, 19 February 1908, Page 8

TRADE & LABOUR NOTES.

(By Industrial Tramps (Secretaries of the variens Unions are rsquesLed to forward copies of their Union engagements to "Industrial Tramp," "Star" Office, and a list of Union Meetings will be -eurnishpd at the head oi this coiiimn <Tcr each, week.l UXION MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK. This Evening, Feb. 10 — Trades and Labour Council. Thursday, Feb. 20 — Tramway TJnioc (Committee.!. Friday, F<£b. iii — Letterpress Machinists iCcinniittee). Monday/ Feb. 21 — Hairdressers. liiesuay, Feb. _ Plumbers. .Wednesday, Feb. 20 — Waterside Worker;;. United Grocers' picnic to-day at Pine Island. The Auckland Cabmen's Union are agitating for an up-to-date cab stand at the foot of Queen-street, with a feeder stand in Quay-street. Instead of the present system of ten or a dozen cabs clustered together in our principal street, the union, in a letter to the City Council last week, advocated the installation ! of single cabs opposite the railway sta- j tiun, ur.il as those cabs are hired, the I foremost cab on the '"feeder" stand in ! Quay-street would move out aifti take | up the vacant position. This is the system adopted iv all big cities, and. in the shopkeepers, as in the present system of clustering cabs together. The erection of a cabmen's shelter, with teleplwrie attached, for calling up cabs, was aUo mooted. The cabmen claim that theC'ouncL, deriving a big income from the licensing of these vehicle;; and drivers, has a right to look after the comfort of the cabmen, as is done in London, Sydney, Wellington, and aanv other cities. There are in England a million and afcalf young men under 20 who know no trade, becau.se they were made errandboys instead of apprentices. Even in Auckland boys have a rooted objection to going to a trade, as they want high ! wages to start with; and the result is that there is a large supply of unskilled labour, if boys could only realise that a tra4e—though entailing \ow wages for j a few years—means a more independent j and higher paid position for life, after apprenticeship has been served, there would be more skilled tradesmen and less applicants willing to "do anything" to get a living. Germany employs some hundreds of women in its secret service. Several of them draw salaries of £2000 a year. Tno first elections under the new Municipal Act in New South Wales were held on February 1, and 3000 men were returned as the people's representatives on Shires and Municipal Councils. For the first time Labour took ,i prominent part in fne elections, and in many its candidates were successful. At Broken Hill, for instance, seven Labour men "ot in, out of a total Council of 12-"at Cuonamble, six of the seven Labour men were elected; at Temora, Labour won all the seats, nine in number; five at Orange, three at Bulli, and a 'lar°-e number in the suburbs of Sydney ° "While the Bishop of London' and other prominent persons of the exploiting class are doing their best as emigration touts to induce the workers" of this country to go to Canada to undersell their fellow-workers, it is interesting to note that even the 'Daily Mail' has the honesty to record the fact that 'every mail brings a batch of letters from emigrants . . . notably from Ontario, emphasising the terrible outlook for many families. ... In Toronto at the present time there are about 10.000 men (mostly Britishers) who are looking for work. All the industries, and especially the metal trades, are doing little or nothing, having laid off twothirds of their men ... All the letters urge the cessation of wholesale emigration."—"'Justice." Out of a dozen clerks employed in the office of a large firm of Sydney accountants only one is getting more than £1 a w-eek. And there are still some people who say there is no need of a Clerks' Union. During last year the strikes which occurred in France were 1309 in number, as compared with 830 which took place during the year preceding—being an increase ;of:so.per cent. . In. 1905 each person taking part in a strike lost on an average fourteen working days. In 1800 the days lost increased to nineteen. The Jesuits of'the strikes were as follows:— In 21 per cent of the eases the workers Were successful in gaining their points; in 41 per cent of the cases the workers •Jvere partially successful, and in the retnaining 3S per cent of the disputes the •employers won the day. The Tailors' Union of New South IWales includes nearly S6O tailoresses known as "order" tailoresses as distinct irom "factory" tailoresses. Each section of the women workers las a Union—the Tailoresses' Union and the Order Tailoresses' Union. The Carnegie Steel Company of Pittsburg, Pa., has refused to sign the wage scale of the union, men who are working the company's leased wires. Since the Homestead strike the Carnegie company ihas refused to have anything whatever to do with unions. The company was "the oply concern in the city that refused to sign the scale. At the half-yearly meeting of the Sydney Furniture Trades' Union it was reported that in view of the nominal expiry of the New South Wales award, arrangements were in progress for a conic ronce with the employers in Sydney for the purpose of drawing up a fresh agreemQEt. After lengthy negotiations with the various furniture trades' societies throughout the Commonwealth and New Zealand, a scheme had teen devised for "the establishment of a system of correspondence and a telegraphic code, the object being to prevent the transference of men from one State to another during c dispute. The report and balancesheet showed that the society, was nourishing numerically and financially. During the year there were three death allowances and 800 sick pays provided for. In Norway and Denmark laws have been enacted granting government subsidies to trade unions paying unemployed 'benefits.