MARKET WORKERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 136, 10 June 1936, Page 8

MARKET WORKERS.

GUILD APPLICATION.

REGISTRATION REFUSED. COMMENTS IN AUCKLAND. Advice haR been received that the Registrar of Industrial Unions in Wellington has refused registration of the Auckland City Market Employees' Society under the Industrial, Conciliation and Arbitration Act on the grounds that he sees no reason why the workers concerned should not belong to the appropriate existing organisations.

"It is satisfactory to know that the Registrar has refused to register the guild," said, Mr. W. Miller, secretary of the Storemen and Packers' Union, who is one of the Trades Union secretaries who has been taking active measures to combat the guild movement, this morn-

ing. "We (irmly believe that the guild was a company union and a company union never has got the same benefits as an outside union. We -have had them before in New Zealand. One significant fact hau been that no attempt was made to register guilds as unions until the new industrial legislation was advanced."

An official of the guild movement expressed disappointment at the registrar's decision, and felt that the Minister of Labour, the Hon. H." T. Armstrong, had not understood the position, but had listened to a vocal minority. He maintained that there was no feeling of class distinction behind the guild' movement, and felt that a big section of the public ficenied to have an altogether wrong , idea of the object of guilds. Some of the guilds which had been in existence long* before the advent of the new industrial legislation of the Labour Government might have been helped or inspired by employers, but the guilds recently formed or in process of formation were, no far ae the official could discover, inspired by the workers, who believed their particular interests would be best served by having- an organisation representative of a particular industry and embracing all types of labour in that industry.

Clerks in the market industry, he said, would apparently now be required to join the general clerks' union, which would have the initial disadvantage that the competitive element was gone, or not nearly so strong as it would have been had there been registered agreements in existence in respect of industrial unions in prosperous industries that would have set a high standard. Many elerks who were prepared to enter unionism in their own way now felt that they were being pitchforked into it, and would join the Clerical Union with feelings of resentment.