UNIONS ARE AWAKE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 228, 25 September 1940, Page 3

UNIONS ARE AWAKE

THE 40-HOUR WEEK.

REPLY TO MR. A. J. MOODY.

Criticism of the statement made by Mr. Allan J. Moody, chairman of the Auckland Hospital Board, at the board meeting on Monday evening, when he

■■aid that if he v Jiad his way he would inr.Ue all workers work until they dropped and keep working, and the sooner unions woke up the better, was made U -day by Mr. H. Campbell, secretary of 15 unions represented on the complete staff of the Auckland Hospital. In the Arbitration Court last week Mr. Campbell appeared on behalf of the workers concerned, and opposed the board's application for exemption of payment of the o per ceiit increase in wages made by the Court in a general order applying to all employees working under industrial awards or agreements. '"Members of the unions α-jnesented on the hospital staff have kept niv telephone busy this morning drawing my at tout i>M to Mr. Moody'ss statement," said Mr. Campbell. "They consider the remarks an outburst of temper on the part of the board chairman. If he has I icon correctly reported, and I take it he leas, then it seem* that the Xew Zea-' land soldiers have gone overseas to look for something that was here right under their noses. Presumably, 'if he had his way,' alter the workers had dropped through sheer exhaustion, lip would get his fiestapu to use the rubber truncheon mi them for further effort, and if that failed he would always have a plentiful supply of castor oil on hand. "Mr. Moody'a statement was made at a board meeting, but I would point out that it applies to all workers, so now they know what to expect. I can assure Mr. Moody or anyone else that the unions will be wide awake and ready to deal with him or anyone who tampers with the 40-hour week. "The Government has conscripted flesh and blood, aiul if the people Mr. Moody represents would make the same proportion of sacrifice in payment for the war effort, then the Government's problems in financing the war effort would be at an end.' .