The Press WEDNESDAY, JANUARY, 15, 1947. Waterfront Dispute

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25083, 15 January 1947, Page 6

The Press WEDNESDAY, JANUARY, 15, 1947. Waterfront Dispute

The pamphlet in which the watersiders’ leaders state their case barely touches the question with which the public is chiefly concerned: that is, why the watersiders resorted to a form of direct action i to enforce claims which they could i represent to the Waterfront Industry Control Commission, and which they were bound to try to negotiate through the commission’s machinery. They had asked to have it set up; they had accepted it when it was set up. They had not even this excuse for acting as they did, that they had used the commission’s machinery to the full and to the end, had found it unworkable, and had decided to abandon it finally. If they had done this, if they had announced that, after brief but sufficient trial, they were resolved against co-operating further in commission control, if they had announced that their 40-hour week move was their first to re-establish direct collective bargaining with the shipping companies—if so, then their decision would have been regrettable, and in obvious respects unwise and objectionable; but it would have been clear and the grounds for it would have been clear. But they did not fully use the commission’s machinery, as they were bound to; they did not announce their final rejection of it. What they did was unreasonable and intolerable: they pulled their case away from the commission’s table, took their own measures to dictate a settlement, and let it be understood that they expected to cooperate with the commission again ■ afterwards. No industrial body can play fast and loose with a legally established system like that, cont forming when it suits, breaking ’ away when that suits better, coming back to start all over again. Reviewing the commission’s November pronouncement, the watersiders’ pamphlet asks: “Is it to be “ wondered at that the rank and “file watersider, reading this de- “ cision on Thursday, November 28, “ became thoroughly incensed, dex “manded meetings of his branches, t “ and insisted on the immediate “ limitation of the hours of work “ to* 40 a week?” It may or may 5 not be astonishing that the rank and file watersider was incensed; it may 1 or may not be, that he demanded meetings of his branches. But it is to be wondered at that his leaders , let themselves be rushed by this l 2 rash rank and file watersider—did they, indeed? or did they inspire his rashness?—into an arbitrary and 2 wrong course: into delivering an

ultimatum to the commission and into direct action on the waterfront to enforce it. It is so much to.be wtondered at that the Government and the Federation of Labour have taken the only possible stand. The watersiders must either loyally submit te the commission’s authority, and unreservedly co-operate in maintaining it, or the commission must dissolve. As for the political aspect of the matter, upon which Mr McLagan, as Minister of Labour, concentrates in his reply to the pamphlet, it is important, certainly, but much less important to the public than to the Labour Party. Whether that is split, or unionism is split, concerns the publie, to-day, much less than the question of re- , sponsibility, within industry, undez its? accepted codes of control and dispute settlement. The Laboui Party must harmonise its faction; : as it may; but the Government al , New Zealand has a first and las' duty to the p'ublic—to see that al t obligations under the law are dja charged. Fortunately, .the Govern ment appears to see it.