UNIONS PROTEST

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 22, 27 January 1922, Page 3

UNIONS PROTEST

AGAINST ARBITRATION 1 CLAUSES. i XEW BILL TO BE OPPOSED. t (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Keporte*.* I j WELLINGTON, Thursday. , j There was plain speaking at a deputaI I tion representing the Alliance of Labour > ' and the Trades Councils to the Minister r1 of Labour to-day. Dealing with the pro- , : posed amendments of the Arbitration , | Act Mr. Roberts, of the Alliance of Lab- , I our. declared that the workers would not j ,i stand tor the kind of thing in the bill' and would oppose it tooth and nail whether it became law or not. The deputation took exception uo the *voting methods proposed for the Arbitration Court assessor, producing figures to showit would reduce the unions' votes from 1844 to 717, giving representation to ! 37,290 unionists but leaving unrepreI sented 59,055. They considered uhat the clause dealing with the appointment of I Conciliation Committee representatives was designed to enable delegates to be selected with whom the employers could do whau they liked. Mr. Anderson, in I reply, undertook to look into the penal j clauses to which objection had been ! taken. He was advised that legally it ! would not stop the free discussion of industrial matters, and he would not attempt jo do anything so absurd. He ] would look into the question of the election of assessors and the proposed exclusion of local bodies from the arbitration proceedings, but he held out no hope lof modifying the clause eliminating the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants from voning for the Arbitration Court assessor.