INDUSTRIAL ALLIANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 43, 20 February 1926, Page 9

INDUSTRIAL ALLIANCE.

SCHEME NOT ACCEPTABLE. strongest unions hostile, minority mat combine. (By Cable.—Press Association.^CopTrlga't.) (Hebetyed 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, February 19. Trade union, opinion is now crystallising against the proposed industrial alliance. The miners, the transport workers, the Society of Engineers, and the Electrical Trade Unions, with a combined membership of a million, still favour tne formation of such an alliance, but the Sailors and Firemen's Union, the National Union of Railwaymen and the Federation of Engineering and Shipbuilding have definitely decided against it, while the executive of the Boilermakers* Society has given its members a broad hint to reject the scheme. It is expected that Mr. A. J. Cook's "project will now be abandoned, but the miners, transport workers and electricians may decide in favour of a smaller j alliance, hoping. that the other unions will later change their minds.—(A* and XZ. Cable.).. The above-mentioned scheme was formulated early last November when the executives of the unions and societies named, representing a membership of four millions, met and agreed to a draft constitution, the railwaymen making , , however, an important stiplation, viz., that there should, be a fusion of certain allied trade unions which maintained a separate existence. It was stated at the time that this would create a difficulty, but the railwaymen declared that, unless such fusion were effected, they would reconsider their attitude to the scheme. The principal objects of the proposal were the guaranteeing of mutual assistance to defend hours and wages conditions and to promote or defend any vital principle.