LABOUR NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 150, 26 June 1937, Page 18

LABOUR NOTES.

UNION ACTIVITIES.

(By INDUSTRIAL TRAMP.)

UNION MEETINGS FOR THE WEEK,

Monday. June 28—Bricklayers. We.ln.whiy, June 30—Auckland Carpen tors. Onehunga Carpenters. Thursday, Ju'.y I—Tilers' Committee.

A WIDER FRANCHISE. A long expected announcement of a more, democratic franchise for the Auckland Electric Power Board elections was made this week by the Hon. H. G. R. Mason (Attorney-General), and considerable public interest has been occasioned by the publication of the steps to l>e taken to secure this progressive change. Up till the present time only ratepayers have been eligible to vote at the election of members of the Auckland Power Board, and as the board's district or electorate covers three or four of the boroughs or town districts in and around Auckland, the Power Board's electors were taken from the ratepayers' rolls of those local bodies. But when a ratepayer was in arrears with his rates to his local body, he was deemed to be unfinancial when he came to vote for the Power Board, even though he had paid his electric light bill regularly every month; furthermore, only one in each financial ratepayers' family was eligible to vote. Thus, if the husband in a family was the ratepayer, the wife had no vote, and vice versa.

At the last election, the Dominion was in the throes of the economic depression, many i f the ratepayers were unable to pay their rates in o:ie sum, and by arrangement with their local bodies were paying them off in small sums weekly or quarterly as agreed on. These people were struck off the roll as unfinancial at the last Power Board election. The annual demand for rates payable to the City Council, whether for general or water rates, is all contained in the one rating paper, but some of the other boroughs issue two papers, one for the general rates and the other for the water rate. If the general rales, involving many pounds, were paid, and the water rate, of as many shillings, was overlooked, the ratepayer was still crossed off the Power Board roll as "unfinancial." In a small poll the old board was practically unaltered, in marked contrast to the City Council, .Hospital and Transport Boards, where a' strong democratic vote was exercised. The proposed amendments provide that adult suffrage shall rule, and in the case of husband and wife any qualification possessed by either of them shall he deemed to be possessed by each of them. The amending bill will be put through next session, and the 1938 poll will displace the last relic of the old svstem.

But this does not dispose entirely of the need for electoral reform for other local bodies, for example, the harbour boards and the Auckland Milk Council. In the former the election of members is. to say the least, very unequal. Several members of the Harbour Board are elected solely by a few score of votes by "payers of ships' dues." who nuv possibly live in London; while other members are separately elected by the votes of "payers of dues, other than ships'"; the four city representatives are elected on an adult suffrage vote, and it takes thousands of votes to elect them. The members of the Milk Council should also be elected under an aduit suffrage vote. At present two members are elected by the producers and two by the vendors; three are appointed by the City Council and two by the other local bodies concerned. All should be elected by a democratic vote.

RISING PRICES IN JAPAN. The "Made in Japan" article, whether it be -metal, crockery, woollen, or cot-1 ton. has been a menace to New Zealand] industries that have to produce under shorter hours, higher pay and better liv-| ing conditions, but there are alreadv I indications that the Japanese workers are endeavouring to secure better condi- j tions that will ultimately raise the cost of production even of the Japanese commodity and thus reduce the disparity between their cost of production and ours. Exchanges tell us that commodity prices, already nearly 00 per cent above the 1030 levei, are leading to a wave of discontent among all grades of workers in Japan, and demands for compensatory wage increases have become formidable. Even the higher civil servants have joined in the movement in Tokyo. They point out that living costs have increased 30 per cent since 1030, while their salaries are 10 per cent less. Wages in yidustry have remained practically unchanged «ince 1930. or have, if anything, decreased. Meanwhile, dealings in cotton yarn, raw cotton and rayon remain suspended as a result of the alarming price rises which followed the decree making official permission neeeesary for purchases of foreign .exchange. The Government's aim is to save the yen from the inflation with which it is threatened because of the country's huge armaments expenditure.

40-HOUR WEEK IN TEXTILES. "Put the 40-hour week into operation as soon as possible," was the plea made by Mr. Arthur Shaw, British T.U.C. representative at the International Textile Conference in Washington (says Reuter). "We can produce in 40 hours," he declared, "everything that the world needs." Mr. Shaw, who is general secretary of the National Union of Dyers, Bleachers and Textile Workers, has been elected the workers' vice-president of the conference (says the British United Press). Mr. Harold Butler, Director of the International Labour Office at Geneva, gave the alignment of the textile manufacturing nations on the hours question as follows: — For 40-hour week: United States, France, Italy and Russia. For 48-hour week: Britain, Belgium, Canada, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Poland, Mexico, Holland and Sweden. More than 48 hours: China; India and Japan. « HITLER BANS ROUND ROBINS.

I Hitler, having smashed the free trade 1 unions by which the German workers used to defend their rights, has now turned his attention to another "dangerous relic of democratic days'." It is the round robin. Round robins signed by members of office or factory staffs petitioning fur better conditions are not in keeping with the "leader principle," it was declared recently. In future, therefore, workers trying to collect signatures for such a purpose 'may be punished by instant dismissal.