LABOUR'S NEW ORGANISATION

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 23, 27 January 1911, Page 6

LABOUR'S NEW ORGANISATION

PASSING OF THE TRADES COUNCILS. AN EMPLOYEES' FEDERATION.

The last Trades and Labour Council meeting has been held in Auckland, and that organisation is now a thing of the past. In its place has sprung up a new Labour organisation, which will be known as the N.Z. Employees' Federation. The object of this new organisation is set forth under four headings, (a) to secure by all just means the best possible advantages for all classes of labour throughout New Zealand, (b) to maintain a spirit of fraternal sympathy with the workers of other countries, (c) to uphold the rights of all workers to a remuneration equivalent to the full value of their labour power, and (d) to affirm the distinct identity of labour as a factor in the field of politics. The federation is composed of a federal council (whose headquarters will in turn be at Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin), of district councils, federations of unions, and unions. In the past Trades and Labour Councils have practically been self-gov-erning bodies. Now that they have been j abolished,'the district councils will take their place, and each shall have control over all matters falling within the district, provided that such council shall take the advice of unions affiliated to it on such questions as the delegates may be seriously divided upon. Each union has control over tits own internal affairs, and shall have representation on the council of the district, and .through it on the federal council. Full control in respect of all matters of a colonial or national character is vested in the federal council.

The change is welcomed by unionists in Auckland, as the Trades and labour Council has not been an altogether happy institution of recent years, several of the more important unions having followed the lead of the Carters' Union, when it broke away from the Council in 1905. I Under the new scheme, each union is enI titled to representation on the district council, and it is practically certain that the unionists of Auckland, who under the old system of Trades and labour Councils were divided, will now be bound together in one unanimous party.