MISUNDERSTANDING

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 281, 26 November 1937, Page 10

MISUNDERSTANDING

GIRLS ON STRIKE.

WAS THERE "INTIMIDATION?"

EMPLOYERS' SUGGESTION*.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SIDNEY, November 19,

The Hardie Rubber Company is a large and prosperous firm, with a factory in Paddington employing about 200 girls. Some three weeks ago the man-J agement gave notice of a new scale of payments for piece work, including a bonus system which it was claimed by the employers would equalise earnings for different classes of employees throughout the factory. j The girls, however, maintained that some of the workers would lose by the change—in fact they asserted that in some eases their wages would be cut down from £3 10/ to £2 «/ a week. Such a wide difference of opinion suggests that there must liave been misunderstanding on both sides and that certainly seems to have been the case. However this may be, some of the girls struck work and the management quite early in the dispute tried to effect a compromise. About a dozen girls who inaugurated the strike had been dismissed and the management was prepared to take them back and also to reconsider some of the new bonus rates; but the girls, through their union officials, asked for more than this. Police Aid Promised. Then there occurred an episode which gave a peculiar significance to this particular strike. When the girls came to get the pay due to them after'they had I "gone out,'' they found in tkeir envej lopes a note from the management | pointing out that though two of the three concessions required by the p;irls had been granted, they had l>eon induced to fro on strike. This suggested that they had been intimidated and the note went on to assure them that they need have no anxiety about coming back to work. "Not one of our employees has any reason to fear. The police will look after any persons resuming work. They will protect your homes day and night. Free transport to and from work will be given if necessary. If any person is objectionable in any way whatever a complaint to the management or the police would obtain immediate attention. Furthermore, picketing of any kind is illegal under the Crimes Act." This reference to the possibilities of "intimidation" by the strikers liad the effect of exasperating the unions. The "Labour Daily," which is always to the fore on such occasions, declared that the letters sent by the Hardie Company to the strikers was in itself an attempt at "intimidation," for. it asked, were not the girls assured that those who returned to work would be protected by the police, and did not this mean that all the resources of the "law and order" authorities were marshalled on the side of the employers and against the workers?

Levy for Strikers. The Rubber Workers' Union then eallqjl a meeting at which seven hundred members attended and agreed to make a levy for the support of the strikers "during their enforced idleness." They • proposed to give the adult female employees 25/ a week and th« juniors 15/ a week as strike pa}'; and this was to be covered by a levy of 2/ a week on adult male members of the unirtn. 1/ on females and males over 18; and 6d a week on other juniors.

Thus fortified, the girls held out for about three weeks, but yesterday it was rumoured that a settlement had been reached. The terms include an investigation of the new piece-work scale and the hours systems , in operation, which were the original causes, of the dispute, and as the matters in question are to be looked into by the Federal Industrial Registrar, the employees can be fairly sure that their case will have an impartial hearing. The "Labour Dally" regards the outcome of the struggle as a triumph for the employees, but no one has yet estimated the loss that the workers Save sustained through this temporary cessation of employment, i