LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 58, 9 March 1935, Page 20

LABOUR NOTES.

UNION ACTIVITIES.

(By INDUSTRIAL TRAMP.)

UNION MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK. This Evening, March 9—Felltnongers , Committee. Monday, March 11—Painters, Furniture Trades' Executive, Freezing Works Employees (Otakuhu). Tuesday, March 32—Engineers, Caretakers and Cleaners. Wednesday, March 13—Gas Employees, Onehunga Carpenters, Trades and Labour Council (annual), Dairy Employees.

PROGRESSIVE SIGNS

After a long and patient period of waiting for better times, during which the Arbitration Act has been practically. shorn of its power to settle disputes except with the consent of both parties, and an increase of wages to the worker could, only bo mentioned, withnSbated breath, it is cheering to record from week to week successful efforts here and there to bring about a greater spending power on the part of the wage earners. This week the Dominion carpenters have been pitting in Conciliation Council in Wellington, and on Thursday a. complete agreement was reached, which will take effect from April 5. Rates of pay were fixed at 2/1 an hour. The hours of work lire to be the same as in the existing award. Overtime is to be paid for at time and a quarter for the first three hours, and improvers' pay has been increased to 1/G an hour. The new iournevnien's wage is an increase of Id an hour over the present award rate, while the improvers also share in the increase. There is cause for satisfaction jn this news, but it is not to be placed to the credit of the workers alone, for the, employers must share in it. It is an evidence that employers are forsaking the old mistaken principle that lower ■wages make for the prosperity of the community, and that settled working conditions, upheld by law, means more equitable basis for competition among themselves. ELECTION ACTIVITIES. With less than two months to go "before the municipal elections are upon us, parties and individuals are busy getting ready for the fray. From Press reports I gather that activities on the part of the Labour party are very pronounced just now. Never before has there been such marked interest taken by the workers _in local body elections. In previous years there has often been a difficulty in persuading enough candidates to * come forward for selection, and a smaller' number than the full ticket has been nominated. There is no paucity this year in the number of aspirants for municipal honours, for there are over 30 for 21 seats on the City Council, while the other four contests have well over the requisite number for selection. For the city Mayoralty six; names have been sent in, from which the official candidate is to be by ballot of the delegates to the Labour Representation Committee. The party is to be congratulated on the intense interest evoked this year to secure direct representation on the local bodies. In fact, it might be truthfully asserted that Labour is the only party that is doing any organising at all at present. Their "tickets" are the result of nominations sent in by all the organisations, and from .these the selection is made by ballot. On the other side a self-constituted body asks certain persons to accept nomination, they proclaim no policy, have no platform and do not address the electors. The streets of the city and suburbs will echo the addresses of the Labour candidates prior to polling-day. The old way, in my opinion," is too much of the "take me as I am" principle. Gronlund, in his "Co-operative Commonwealth," points out the weakness of the system, when he -says that the person elected to a public position by the popular franchise is the master of the electors as soon as he is elected, and for the term for -which he is elected, but when he comes up for re-election the people are his masters for a brief period only, and he becomes the suppliant.. Labour puts more safeguards against this position than any other party.

TERRORISM. Terrorism begets terror, remarks the London Labour paper, the "Daily Herald." And of the taking of lives there seems to be no end. This year has been a black one-for Europe. The June slaughter in Germany, the murder of Dolfuss, the assassinations of Marseilles, the murder of Kiroff, the executions in Russia, the Communist shootings in Bulgaria, the bloodshed in Spain. That, 17 years after the Revolution, tho Soviet Government should still be resorting to secret trials and wholesale executions is a shock to its friende, an asset to its enemies. That in the years of revolution there should have been terror was no surprise. It is deplorable; but it happens. Weak regimes ,figh'tihg desperately with their backs to the wall, turn to desperate measures. But the Soviet regime to-day has not even that inadequate excuse. It is strong and firmly, established. Yet, under the provocation of a single assassination;, it revives the methods of the years of revolution. That is impossible to justify.

FORCED LABOUR. The Bulgarian dictatorship has ordered forced labour for all unemployed workers. All unemployed men between 20 and 50 years of asje must in future work eight hours a day for the State, in return for their keep and 25 lewas (about 1/2) a day. The amount of work to be done in that time is laid down by (he Government. Undernourished workers who are unable to perform the allotted task within normal hours will have to put 5n overtime at night and on Sundays. The forced labour which already existed as "labour service" for oung people (those who can afford it an buy themselves out) has thus been ■ctended to the whole of the unemloyed male population.