LABOUR DISPUTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 29, 4 February 1937, Page 6

LABOUR DISPUTES.

The Hon. Mr. Armstrong ie surprised and annoyed. Is he ? Well, so are a large number of employers and employees. This is not the first, second or third time Mr. Armstrong lias failed in his duty towards the electors. Mr. Armstrong appears' to forget er ignore the fact that he is no longer a trades union eeeretary. He has assumed the responsibility of a Minister of the Crown, though he acts as a dictator. His attempt to make political capital out of the attitude he adopted over the freezing works stay-in strike will not even fool his own party. His talk about diseased minds may act like a boomerang. It w no nee Mr. Armstrong attempting to deny the fact that Le did make promises. He asks what would we have him. do. Hie duty, without any favoured treatment, is the answer. He should have refused to meet or address the men at the freezing works. He ehonld have told the men that unless they immediately called the stay-in strike off he would instruct the Police Department to, if necessary, forcibly remove them, and that he would give permission to the employers to use free labour, farmers and others, and afford taem the full protection of the law until such time as the workers obeyed the law. Then we would know who governed Xew Zealand. It is rather strange Mr. Armstrong did not discover what he had said till he left Auckland, seeing that hie statements were published in. the Press here. Both employer and employee have got the Minister's measure. It is an elastic one. It never stays up. The worker knows that all. he has to do is to defy him. Result, Mr. Armstrong will put up a bluff and then eat humble pie. What about the Wellington seamen's episode, the Xapier and Birkenhead incidents, and numerous others? The employers know that no reliance can Tje placed on hie promises. He now says he is going to do something about the Arbitration Court. Of course he is; we know he promised the Trades Hall to do so. If he has his way he will abolish the Arbitration Court and set up a Trades Hall caucus to fix working hours, wages and conditions. There are, however, a very considerable number of workers who a?*, notprepared to be dictated to by Mr. Armstrong, who prefer to take the good with the bad and abide by the Arbitration Court's decisions, and when, as must be the case, something does not work out as they thought it would, have it adjusted by legal methods. Most workers 'and employees prefer to do so rather than-' , take the law into' tneir own hands. CITIZEN.