OPPOSITION TO FEDERATION

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21826, 4 July 1936, Page 14

OPPOSITION TO FEDERATION

One Big Union Of Railwaymen CONSTITUTION BEING DISCUSSED If a single union is formed to cover all railway workers the four existing organisations must completely bury their individual identities —there must be a union but not a federation. This is the official view of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. “Federation,” states the official opinion, “is of no practical value as it involves conflict in policy, and conflct in policy means nothing else but disunity. One big union is the desire of all sincere unionists within the railway service. In the event of one big union being formed as distinct from a federation, the executive woufd recommend to its members that the funds and assets of all existing organisations should be pooled and all identities be sunk in the one big union.”, Christchurch railwaymen will be asked on Sunday afternoon to discuss the proposed constitution of the union, after hearing an address by Mr J. S. Roscoe, secretary of the Railway Officers’ Institute, and a member of the Qne Big Union Movement. ‘The unity of the railway workers is of more value than the whole of our combined organisations’ finance,” says the notice of the meeting. “There is more economic power in a compact organisation speaking with one voice than in a conglomeration of organisations,” Mr Roscoe told a reporter yesterday. “In many instances the organisations work against one another because of jealousy caused by each executive trying to show that it is doing the most for its organisation and is so deserving of the most support. “The object of the one big union is to use persuasion and economic force .according to the time and the circumstances,” he said when asked if use of the power of the organisation meant strikes. ‘That workers should be afraid to strengthen an organisation because that organisation might use that strength on occasions seems ridiculous. “There is the possibility of an occasion arising in the future when the strike weapon might be considered necessary. Then everyone must consider which way he will go, but a strike by a strong organisation is less likely than by a weak organisation which strikes through desperation,” Mr Roscoe added. A conference’ of delegates of the Railway Officers’ Institute is to be held in Wellington on July 21, and it will consider a remit which proposes to instruct the executive to co-operate with the national executives of the other three organisations in calling a national conference of elected delegates “to work out a constitution for the one big union, to give adequate representation to the aspirations and grievances of the various group interests.”