TRADES AND LABOUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 263, 5 November 1932, Page 13

TRADES AND LABOUR.

AUCKLAND UNiON ACTIVITIES.

By INDUSTRIAL TRAMP.)

UNION MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK. Sunday, November 6 —Freezing Works Employees!. Monday, November 7—Drivers. Wednesday, November 9—Hotel and Restaurant Workers; Onehunga Carpenters. INDUSTRIAL UNITY. The event of the week of local interest was the two-days' conference of delegates from the Auckland unions at the Trades Hall to consider the situation that has arisen from the amendments made by Parliament early in the year to the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act and the concerted action apparently taken by the Employers' Association throughout the Dominion to use the Act for tlie purpose of nullifying all awards. The conference opened on Thursday morning, Mr. G. Davis, secretary of tlio Auckland Drivers' Union, being elected chairman. Some 40 delegates, representaing about 50 affiliated unions were in attendance, and several sub-coin xnittees were sot up to deal with various aspects contained in the remits sent in for discussion. At the time of writing, the conference was still in session, but on Thursday it was resolved: "That a standing committee bo selected for the purpose of co-operat-ing with all unions in resisting the wagereduction policy of the Employers' Federation, and that in the event of organisations failing to agree in conciliation the committee to have power to convene a conference of the local industrial movement, with a view of taking suitable action to protect the organisation involved." The need for such a standing committee has been* shown by the fact that officials of the employers' associations have now advised that agreements should be made if possible with the larger and more militant unions, and this implies that the smaller unions will come under the "take it or leave it" offers. While it would mean endless trouble, expense and perhaps chaos to throw down such a gauntlet to the bigger unions, some of the weaker unions, as a matter of expediency, may accept what is offered, and such a settlement would be produced as evidence of reasonable conditions. Hence there is, right through the Dominion, a disposition among the unions, great and small, to combine and present a united front to the employers' demands.

FREEZING WORKS TROUBLE. The members of the local freezing workers' union are still refraining from engaging for the season, and frequent meetings aro being held. Mr. H. C. Revell, secretary of tlie Canterbury Freezing Works and Related Trades Union, made a statement last week, in which he said: "The freezing works trouble in the North Island was being wrongly described as a strike. He further explained that, although killing in the Canterbury district did not start until early in December, and the employers' new terms would not apply locally until then, any variation of the conditions of employment would have to be of a national character.

"The employers arc constantly using the term 'strike' in connection with the dispute in tlie North Island, but we contend there is no strike in the freezing industry," said Mr. Revell, "and tlio men are merely not accepting work under the new conditions proposed by the employers. A similar position developed in tlio Hawke's Bay district in 1926, when owing to a certain attitude adopted by the employers, the men declined to make application for work until the cause of tlio trouble had been removed. An application was made to the Arbitration Court, when evidence was taken in connection with the move for a new award to suspend the preference clause, which the Court had power to do, in a case where a union had taken part in a strike. The Court, however, in its memorandum to the award, dated March 4, 1927, stated that the circumstances of the case did not bring the occurrence within the definition of a strike, inasmuch as tlie men liad not broken an existing engagement."