CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 213, 8 September 1943, Page 2

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

UNIONISM AND POLITICS

(To the Editor)

Compulsory unionism had itg origin in -New Zealand when the Hon. R. Semple made an agreement with the late Arthur Cook, then the general secretary of the New Zealand Workers' Union, an organisation that had previously not been affiliated with the Labour party. The agreement was to the effect that as Mr. Semple was going to have some 10,000 men on public works of various descriptions, he would make membership of the N.Z.V/.U. compulsory, if Mr. Cook saw to it that the union became affiliated to the Labour party, and thus the politicians would get at the minimum 10/jOO annual subscriptions, which, I believe, at that time were 9d per member annually for an affiliated union membership. The two who took up the cudgels on behalf of the system of compulsory political payments do not state the position fairly. A man directed by the manpower officer to go to work on a P.W.D. job has to take out a yearly ticket in the N.Z.W.U.; he may only work two or three months on that job and is then directed by the manpower officer to another job, one that does not come under the industrial jurisdiction of the N.Z.W.U. Again he is compelled by law to join the union covering his new occupation, though there may he still an unexpired balance of several months on the yearly subscription that hepaid to the N.Z.W.U., and he can get no refund. He thus has to pay twice to be a union member in accordance with the law. Will the Government allow men so penalised to take their case to the Price Tribunal to complain of the high cost of compulsory unionism? 1 E. J. B. ALLEN.