SHEARING CRISIS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 166, 15 July 1910, Page 5

SHEARING CRISIS.

AN ABORTIVE CONFERENCE. NO CHANCE OP SETTLEMENT. "WE WILL NOT BE SHEARERS THIS YEAR." (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. Mr. Laraey has sent the following cable message to the "Australian Worker":— "Court case abortive. No chance of settlement now. Advertise the stay-away system, and keep two columns of the "Worker" open next week. Budget going over. We will not be shearers this year." Asked what the New Zealand Shearers and Woolshed Employees' Association of Workers intended doing in view of negotiations for a conference to discuss a Dominion award having failed, Mr. Laraey stated that it was intended to hold meetings throughout New Zealand to go on with the fight, as the employers had again ignored them. At the meetings the whole position would be placed before the members of the Association, and the manner in which the employers had treated them would be explained. Members of the association would be asked to confirm the resolutions previously arrived at on the question of the rate at which shearing should be done, or to reverse them. The meetings would also be asked to approve or disapprove of the executive's actions and those of their representatives at the conference with the employers' representatives. Mr. Laraey added that the executive, in what it had done, had simply carried out the wishes of the members, and not necessarily those oi the executive. He stated that at the conference held to discuss a Dominion award, the represenI tatives of the shearers were asked to sign the following:—"That the shearers' delegates are authorised to deal with the question of price, and to accept such price as may be agreed upon between 17/6 and 20/, and that the executive bind themselves to take no steps to interfere with workers accepting work at the minimum rale agreed upon at conference." The shearers' representatives, he continued, point blank refused to sign anything so absurd. UNIONIST SECRETARY INTERVIEWED. ' (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent' C&IUSrCIIIJnCH, Thursday. ' This afternoon deltgatcs lcyresenimg' the Caatarbuty Shedrci's' L'nioii and the, Canterbury aacep Owners' Association met to discuss the date and place ior the' Dominion conterence, wuw it had Deeni agreed by the two parties should be. held. The result oi the meeting was an iudelinite postponement ol tbe conference, I as the employers' representatives asKed | the workers to subscribe to a condition to the holding of a conference which they regarded as intolerable. When seen by a ' Lyctelton Times", reporter last evening, Mr P. Waddell, the secretary oi the {Shearers' Union, stated that when the question was be/ore the Arbitration Court in the morning the workers' representatives had given an undertaking that they would be prepared to discuss with the employers at a Dominion conference the rates and conditions of labour. They further guaranteed that the members of the union would abide by any conditions agreed upon at that conference. The employers' delegates had, however, taken a course of action that was entirely unjustified by precedent, for they had asked for a resolution in writing from the executive of the Federated Shearers' Union that their delegates are authorised to deal with the question of price, and to accept such price as may be agreed upon between 17/6 and 20/-, and that the executive bind itself to take no steps to interfere with the workers aocepting at the minimum rate agreed upon at the _ conference. "I have had experience of many conferences," continued Mr WaddeU, "but never before have I been asked to give a written guarantee of good faith, and I do not believe that there is a precedent for such a request. Y/e had sufficient authority from our union to sign the undertaking, but we could not see our way clear to do so, and we decided not to accede to a request that broke up all ideas of a conference." Mr Waddel went on to say that, as the judge of the Arbitration Court had himself stated, since efforts to bring about an agreement by a conference had proved abortive there was nothing now before the union but freedom of contracV He had had every hope that the proposed conference would have led to a satisfactory settlement of the difficulty before the shearing season opened, for when they bad had time to review the acute position in which the industry had been placed, the employers must have been led to regard the matter in a different light from that in which it at present appeared to them. Although the employers had adopted an attitude which made it impossible until the existing conditions were altered to arrange a conference, he was still confident that an amicable settlement of the dispute would be arrived at before the shearing season opened. ATTITUDE OF THE EMPLOYERS. (By Te:egraph.—Press Association.) CHRISTCiHURCH, this day. In the Arbitration Court this morning Mr. Pry or (for the employers) said ir. had been found impossible to arrange a Dominion conference in the shearing case. The employers were anxious for the union to give a complete undertaking in writing that the representatives would be prepared to deal with the question of price, and would accept any price agreed on between 17/0 an! 20/. They also desired the executive of the union to bind itself to take no steps to interfere with workers accepting work at the minimum rate. The union representatives entered no appearance to-day, and the Court announced that, as the case had been adjourned till July 26, the matter must stand over. The Court's action then would depend on what happened in the interim.