TRADE AND LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 169, 18 July 1924, Page 11

TRADE AND LABOUR NOTES.

(By INDUSTRIAL TBAMP.) UNION MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK. Sunflay, July 20—Drivers. Monday, July 21 — Butchers. Furniture Trades. Hairdressers, Cutters and Pressers, Union Secretaries. Wednesday, July 23—Bootmakers. Thursday. July 24—Boilermakers, numbers' Educational. DEPARTMENTAL RED TAPE. Last week the Minister of Labour issued to the unions of the Dominion a circular letter which is causing quite a stir amongst the members all over the Dominion. According to a private letter from the South, union officials there are denouncing the latest attempt on the part of the Massey Government to put the Labour unions in strait-jackets in no unmeasured terms. In Auckland the Trades Hall Trust is convening a meeting of union secretaries for the afternoon of Monday next to obtain a united opinion on this last proposal to dragoon the unions into a more submissive state of mind. With the circular letter is forwarded six sheets of foolscap 6ize. One and a half pages of these are occupied with fourteen clauses of closely typed suggestions for the better and more efficient keeping of the accounts of the union, the remainder being specimen pages for register of membcrs»j'eceipts cash book, and expenditure casn book. In the register of members it is proposed to have one page for each member. For a union in an industry which affords fairly constant employment for its members this may be fairly workable, but in an industry which consists of casual labour, paid by the hour, not only is the work intermittent, but so also is the membership, and I have before mc the register of a union of this class consisting of about SO members, in which 200 pages have been in use, out of which about 50 pages have only one or two entries, viz., entrance fee and first payment of one or two weeks' contributions, after which the page is blank, the member having -drifted into another industry owing to unsuitability of employee or employer, or slackness of trade. This register, I may state, was discarded by the union in 1920 as too unwieldy and cumbersome, in favour of a register that permits of 33 names on each opening and 12 months on each page. On the proposed register there are 13 separate items of information to be recorded. On the proposed receipts cash book there are six different columns suggested, so that it may be shown that "when John Doe pays sixpence on July 19, 1924, his number or folio in the register is 78," and a column is provided to indicate when that particular sixpence was paid to the bank. In the instructions for keeping the minutes of general meetings it is suggested that "the names of those present (where practicable) shall be recorded." Imagine the bulk of the minutes of a union having over 500 members, or even 100 members. Another proposal is that the annual accounts of the union shall be audited by a public auditor. Many of the larger unions have that provision now, and it works satisfactorily, but there are not a few unions with small memberships of 20 or even less whose funds will not allow' of a payment of three guineas for a professional audit of one or two pages of a cash book. Their audits are now done by two of the members elected at the annual meeting, and done gratis and efficiently. However, all these matters will come in for consideration at the meeting of officials on Monday next, and a combined opinion will eventually be forwarded to the Minister. Some of the unions are largo enough to employ typists and bookkeepers to do the office work, while the secretary look 9 after the working of the award; but there are very many small unions whose secretaries have to do their own bookkeeping as well as see the awards are observed, and if the Minister's suggestions are carried the secretary will have to' spend all his time in routine office work while the working conditions look after themselves. Perhaps that is the reason for these meticulous provisions. OPPOSITION TO COMPULSORY ARBITRATION. Organised Labour, especially in America, is opposed to compulsory arbitration. In America organised labour is practically an "aristocracy of labour," consisting largely of skilled workers who obtain a wage exceeding , that' of unskilled workers to a degree not seen anywhere else in the world. In this they have 'been favoured by a combination of conditions. There can be no doubt that as a body they are opposed to compulsory arbitration. When in August, 1916, a strike on the entire railway system was threatened fey the four railway brotherhoods, and some action was proposed in the form of the Canadian Act, which lias largely influenced English and New Zealand legislation, the trade union officials issued a statement containing these words: "Since the abolition of slavery, no more effectual means has been devised for ensuring the "bondage of the working man than the passage of compulsory investigation acts of the character of the Canadian Industrial Disputes Act." Within lese than a week the brotherhoods called off the strike after Congress had passed an Act giving the men immediately the eight-hours' day—a substantial part of what they asked— and providing for investigation by a. commission of the effects of the rule. This was compulsory on the railway authorities, but was not compulsory upon the men who accepted the terms. Whatever may be the opinions of organised labour, .there is a general recognition to-day that the community as represented by the State, must be reckoned with in labour disputes. Especially is this necessary where the railways and other public utilities as in Australia and New Zealand are operated by the State The question of the riglit to strike in the case of public utilities would need to be very carefully considered in the democratic State. All the more so will this be necessary if the •State is to assume more and more the control of industry.— (Professor R. A. Woodthorpe, in "Otago Daily Times.") A WOMAN MINISTER FOR EDUCATION. The first all-Socialist Cabinet in Denmark is distinguished by having as one of its members the first woman Cabinet Minister in the world, Senator Nina Bang, who will be Minister of Education in the Government of Premier Theodor Stauning. Mrs. .Bang is the widow, of Dr. Gustave Bang, one of the pioneers of Danish Socialism, who died in 1915. She is' a noted scholar, and a tireless Socialist propagandist. She was a suffrage pioneer, and was one of the first women-elected to Parliament, heing elected to the Lower House in 1913, and in 1918 to the Upper House, of which she is still a member. She has long been a member of the executive of the Social Democrat party. Mrs. Bang was <bom in 1866, and secured hei degree in history at the University of Copenhagen,