The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News The Echo and The Sun. SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1941. COOL-STORE DISPUTE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 3, 4 January 1941, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News The Echo and The Sun.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1941. COOL-STORE DISPUTE.

For Me cause that lacks assistance, For the v.rong that reeds resistance, For the future in the distance, A nd the good that tee can do.

After having , again refused to work on .Sunday, except ou their own terms, about 140 chamber-hands, comprising nn essential part of ihe produce export organisation, yesterday were dismissed from their employment. The men have contended, iiml .-till contend, that for Sunday work their rules of pay should be equal to those of the waterside workers. The disparity in rates appear.-, considerable, especially wh<?n it. is realised that the two groups of workers handle the same produce at different stages. Such an anomaly was bound to cause friction. It arises, not because the cool-store workers are under-paid, but because the waterside workers are over-paid, especially for overtime work. Under a more intelligent organisation of industry there would not exist such an artificial division of workers into separate unions, leading to a competition which is won by that union which, partly through political circumstances and partly because through the years it has seldom hesitated to use direct action to enforce its demands, has established itself in a privileged position. It is particularly unfortunate that the cool-store workers, who have not in the past borne the reputation of a body of meu concerned only to advance their own interests at the expense of the community, should have allowed themselves now to be led into a position where that charge lies against them. Worse than that, they—a body of men whose patriotism would not be questioned on any other ground—have laid themselves open to a charge of war profiteering.

It is of the essential nature of war-time conditions that men, and women too, find themselves obliged to submit to circumstances which they dislike, and to which ordinarily they would not submit. No war could be won, or even fought at all, if any considerable section of a people resolved that they would not agree to any alteration in their peace-time conditions of life, except upon their own terms. This is true not only of men in uniform, but of men who remain at their ordinary work. For that reason it is required, by law, of all men that whatever else they do they shall not interfere with the production of the community. For that reason the Government in this war has established legal machinery, the chief purpose of which is to ensure that when disputes arise in industry the work in that industry shall be earned on without interruption. The cool-store workers are violating the spirit and the letter of both their award and the special war emergency legislation. They are doing so at a time when the public has been made more aware than ever before of the vital importance of shipping the Dominion's produce to the United Kingdom without any avoidable delay, because of delays— and disasters—which occur beyond our shores. The majority of the union evidently have not appreciated that their action will be regarded by the public solely in the light of these circumstances. The public will not compare the conditions of the cool-store workers with those of the waterside workers. It will compare their conditions with those of the N.Z.E.F. in Egypt and those of the officers and men. of the merchant ships which carry our produce to Britain. The public will decide that there is "no comparison." And no body of men should make the blunder of thinking that it can ignore and flout public opinion at this time.