LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 261, 4 November 1933, Page 16

LABOUR NOTES.

UNION ACTIVITIES. (By INDUSTRIAL TRAMP.) UNION MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK. Monday. November 6.—Shipwrights. Wnterside "Workers. Tuesday, November 7.—Seamen (monthly stop-work). Engineers annual. RESTORATION OF CUTS.

In answer to a question put by one of the members this week the Prime Minister said that the time was not yet opportune to restore salaries, etc., to the figures that obtained previous to the ■wage cuts being administered. I notice, however, that the Auckland Board of Education this week has decided to restore the last reduction in salaries imposed on the members of the board's staff. In this action the Auckland Board is only following the example set them by the Canterbury Board more than two months ago. There is as yet no indication by the board of restoring the salaries of the teachers in its employ, who came under the pruning knife at the same time as the official staff. The higher paid teachers have not, in my opinion, suffered so much as the lower paid women teachers, many of whom are compelled to live away from home. AlO per cent cut from a high salary is not as severe to the recipient of the cut as it is to a lower paid female teacher who is already on what is termed "the bread and butter line." A few of the business firms, as well as the local bodies in the South, have already restored the cuts to their employees, having realised at last that to cut down the spending power of the workers is not the best way to hasten a return to prosperity. In America the scheme of President Roosevelt to reduce the hours of labour per week and at the same time raise wages is working well. The National Reconstruction Act in the United States has started well, and upwards of 2,800,000 people have been placed in employment, but, according to Mr. Walter Nash, M.P., who returned from the States this week, there are still from nine to ten millions out of employment, and the crucial moment for America and President Roosevelt will occur in January or February next, when the millions still out of work will demand that something shall be done for them. Mr. Nash believes that the President will endeavour to gain full success, although it will probably be necessary to bring in different economic laws. Whatever that may mean the issue will be watched with interest by the English-speaking world, and even our New Zealand Government may get some very useful hints on what to do in troublous times. So far we have only been tinkering with the position.

LABOUR IN ENGLAND. Incomplete though they are, the returns by cable from London yesterday indicate that Labour is again gaining ground in municipal elections, and this will have a big bearing on the Parliamentary elections when they come round. It must be remembered that the municipal elections in England are not "a complete turn-out and - replace," but one-third of a council retire at each election so as to ensure a sufficient leavening of the old councillors. So far, Labour has a net gain of 175 seats, Conservatives a net loss of 106, and Liberals and Independents net losses of 28 and 41 respectively. The "Manchester Guardian" says the swing to Labour was stronger than was anticipated. (It usually is.) It was especially marked in Yorkshire and the North-East. When the last municipal elections took place in 1931, it was not until a week later that the National Government with Ramsay Mac Donald and Philip Snowden at its head was returned with a greatly depleted Labour Opposition of about 50 members. Labour suffered a drastic reverse in the municipal elections, but this has now been partially made up, and taken with the recent Parliamentary by-elections, in which the Labour candidates were returned for Government - seats by big majorities, is a certain indication that another "swing of the pendulum" is shortly to take place, and that Labour will return to power. It was a severe blow to Labour to suffer the defection of three such capable leaders as Mac Donald, Snowden and Thomas at one swoop, but with the recent return to Parliament of Mr. Arthur Henderson, and with younger and more virile men-in the party, the movement will not lack leaders in the future.

WOMEN IN GERMANY. Strong protests against the tyranny of. Hitlerism and against the unjust treatment of women in Germany were voiced at the International Trade Union Women's Conference, held at Brussels recently. The conference expressed its deep abhorrence of the "tyrannical acts to which the working class of Germany had been subjected, and protested against the seizure of the property of the Trade Union movement and its brutal destruction. It was asserted that the right of the German women to choose their vocation in accordance with their abilities had been completely abolished, and that women were deprived of the right to determine their own fate. German women were much harder hit than men by the activities of the National Socialists, who were striving to block up completely all roads leading to economic and social democracy. The conference called upon the women of all nations who considered personal freedom an indispensable condition of life, not merely to express their sympathy with the victims, but also to work against the Fascist dictators by propaganda in all sections of society, by unremitting propaganda and organisation activities, and, above all, by opposing all reaction as a menace to the hardwon equality of status of women with men, and b- the conscientious discharge of the duty to give aid to German women during this time of their oppression.