The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATE The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 1922. BRITAIN'S LABOUR CRISIS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 98, 27 April 1922, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATE The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 1922. BRITAIN'S LABOUR CRISIS.

For the cause tkvt lacks mstistanoe, For the wrong that need* resistance, For the future in the distance, And the goad that we can do. X

The latest cable messages aealing with the industrial crisis at Home are a little more encouraging than usual, as they sugtreat a possible settlement of the trouble in the shipbuilding trade go far as the proposed reduction of wages is concerned. But unfortunately this particular dispute i≤ part and parcel of the difficulty which began in the engineering trades some months ago, and which, far from being settled, has now reached a most dangerous crisis. Luet week's cables indicate clearly enough the source and origin of this unfortunate controversy. The employers "demanded the right to be sole judges" of what changes in managerial control of workshop practice should be effected without consulting the unions." The special points at issue were the arrangement of overtime and the employment of unskilled labour. But the trade unions concerned regarded the whole question as one of principle, and (to quote the cable message once more) their representatives expressed the opinion that no union would accept eueh a stipulation as a condition precedent to negotiations. When matters had reached this point the negotiations were broken off. and it is now understood that Dr. MacNamara, Minister of Labour, is conferring with the two parties. A little further light may be thrmvn upon the situation by reference to a manifesto which the Engineering Employers' Federation published a few weeks ago in the earlier stages of the dispute. Thie document states that the icsue is "a refusal by the trade unions to continue the recognition of the employers' right to exercise managerial functions in his establishment, unless with the consent and approval of the unions." The employers claim that their rights :n this respect, though encroached upon during the war, have never been officially challenged till now, and they insist that this is a definite attempt on the part of Labour "to alter fundamentally the relation which has hitherto existed in the conduct of industry, and to establish a dual administrative control of the shops." To this statement the Amalgamated Engineering Union issued an official reply, pointing out in the tir*t place that the dispute originated in a difference of opinion about overtime and that the employers did not raise the question of "'managerial rights" till a later stage in the controversy. The unions assert that they are prepared to recognise the employers' claims so far as they do not conflict with existing agreemenU. But they maintain that "'the employers are claiming the right, not only to employ men on overtime, but also to employ unskilled men or skilled work entirely at their discretion"; and the workers must resist this claim because '"if it were conceded it would clearly have the effect of reducing the standard of the industry to the level of an unskilled trade."

We believe that these statements represent accurately enough the conflicting views of the two parties concerned, and they 'may serve to bring out clearly the true nature of this deplorable conflict. The employers are contending, as they have done ever since the trade union movement began to develop, that there is one "proper sphere" for Labour and. another "proper sphere" for Capital, and that the workers must not be allowed to extend their activities beyond certain well-defined limite. But as the "Manchester Guardian" well points out, this limitation of spheres ia artificial and arbitrary. "Everything which is to-day admitted to be within the 'proper sphere , of trade-unionism has been won in the teeth of just the same arguments that we hear to-day about the efficiency and profitableness of industry being destroyed": and the question of limiting "managerial functions" or according a larger share in ""industrial control' , to the union? can certainly not be settled no\r by an appeal to precedent or tradition. There is no doubt that the admission of Labour to share in the performance of "managerial functions" is one of the immediate aims of the leaders of the industrial movement everywhere, and they can point to the Whitley Report and tbe Sankey Commission's Report and a large mass of economic literature in defence of the justice of their claims. Moreover, the "Manchester Guardian,"' in commenting on the inauguration of the new scheme of railway councils, on which the unions are represented, remarks that the fact that the companies are consenting parties is "another proof that the old notion of industry as tlie proper sphere of autocracy is passing away." On the other hand, the employers, realising this, have apparently come to the conclusion that they must make a stand on this before it is too late, and they have seized upon the industrial depression and widespread lack of employment at Home as an occasion for a trial of strength with the unions. Under the circumstancee the employers may win, for the present; but it is questionable whether the losses and sacrifices that the struggle must entail will not prove too heavy a price to pay for the chance of delaying the advance of the wageearners towards a larger share in the control of =-**&*•?.