LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 181, 1 August 1936, Page 19

LABOUR NOTES.

UNION ACTIVITIES. (By INDUSTRIAL TRAMP.) UNION MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK. This Evening, August I—Bakers. Monday, August 3 —Shipwrights. Tailore' Committee, Brickworkers, Clerical Workers' Executive. Tuesday, August 4—Seamen's Monthly Stop-work, Drivers. Wednesday, August s—Local5 —Local Bodies' Labourers, Builders' Labourers. Thursday, August 6 —Boilermakers. "IN FEAR AND TREMBLING." I have had many inquiries from employers who are genuinely apprehensive as to the effects recent industrial legislation will have upon their own particular businesses in the matter of being able to carry on with the shorter week and increased wages, and also not a few from employees who have had to look for work as tho result of "readjustments" of staffs on the score of wages. While personally I have every confidence in the ultimate success of the Government's legislation, I find it difficult to impart the same degree of confidence to my apprehensive questioners, for, after all, I am only a layman in these matters, while they claim to be experts in their particular line of trade. For importers or indentors I have to confess I have very little concern; it is for the manufacturers in our struggling secondary industries that I have the greatest sympathy. Our importations from abroad, from countries where there are lower living conditions and lower wages, have in the past wrought terrible havoc with our local manufactures. It is with the small manufacturer, struggling against a paucity of capital and against strenuous competition from big manufacturing companies or firms, that I sympathise. As a backing to my own confidence, which has been frequently expressed in this column from week to week, I quote from a southern paper the opinions expressed by Mr. A. J. Mazengarb, a well-known Wellington solicitor, in an address to more than 140 members of the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Society of Accountants last week. Mr. Mazengarb is well qualified to speak on the subject, for he has lately published a comprehensive commentary, in book form, on the industrial legislation passed by the present Government and the meaning of the different clauses in each Act from a purely legal standpoint. His opinions are entitled to more than passing consideration, as Mr. Mazengarb is not a Labourite, and has stood as an antiLabour candidate for a Wellington seat at the recent Parliamentary elections.

"I do not intend to criticise or express any political opinions on the legislation," said Mr. Mazengarb. "Were I tempted to do so I think I could not do better than to adopt the words of the Prime Minister on election night: 'You have nothing to fear.' When you come to consider the effect of the legislation, I think that, having regard to the majority enjoyed by the Government, the most outstanding feature of the legislation is its moderation. ... If I may venture a prophecy, it is that 42 years on, in 1978, we will look back just as calmly at the legislation of 1936 as we now do at that of 1894.

"The basic wage is not a new principle. It is merely an extension of the minimum wage provision which is contained in almost all awards. The standard adopted in the New Zealand Act is approximately the same as that adopted by Mr. Justice Higgins in Melbourne in 1907 —a wage for the maintenance of a man, a wife and three children. The essential difference is that all Australian Acts mentioned the normal or average

needs of the worKers, while the New Zealand Act demands a sum sufficient to maintain a family in a reasonable state of comfort.

"I might mention the publicity given to activities of the Clerical Workers' Union and the attempts to form various guilds. There is the opposition of one section to so-called company unions and tho fear on the other hand of being forced, willy-nilly, into the power of the Trades Hall. I will here venture an opinion, and it is this, that both factions can remain perfectly calm. There is nothing to fear. "On the one hand, there are obvious difficulties in organising a single body which would represent all sections who could be classified as clerical workers. Assuming such a body were formed, it would then be required to create a dispute with all employers in the Dominion, for what employer does not employ at least one clcrical worker? Even if a union did get so far as to cite employers in all industries, various classes of clerical workers or employees would still have their rights under Section 106.

"Assume, if you like, that the Court, having heard statements of representatives of the clerical staffs of banks, oil companies, stock agents, accountants and legal clerks, that they were not truly represented by the union, still made an award binding them, each and every one of these malcontents would have a statutory right to join the union, each and every one would have a vote in the affairs of the union, and they might constitute an overwhelming majority. The rules of a union can be altered by votes of the members. But it is my opinion that that position will never arise. The law in this respect has never been altered. Section 152 empowers the Court in certain circumstances to refuse to make an award, and will do so when the applicant union does not truly represent the workers sought to be bound in the award."

PUBLIC WORKS MEN SATISFIED. The rates paid to men in the Public Works Department now have been fixed at a figure at which the average man can make a decent living by doing a decent day's work. Some earn more by reason of being more expert and having a better physique than others, but all have equal opportunities if they are able to avail themselves of them. The Minister of Public Works, the Hon. R. Semplo, told "The Standard" this week that reports ,coming in from the district engineers on public works job 6 were very encouraging. The Minister produced figures showing that the average money earned on public works this month was over 17/ a day, a tremendous advance on what had been earned before the Labour Government took control. He compared it with the maximum sum of 12/ a day that married men were able to earn under the last Government. Today there was 110 discrimination between married and single men and the 17/ a day earned in a 40-hour week reflected great credit upon the present administration.