PROPOSAL FOR ONE UNION

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25364, 11 December 1947, Page 6

PROPOSAL FOR ONE UNION

TRANSPORT WORKERS’ FEDERATION (From Our Industrial Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, December 10. The formation of one big union for transport workers has been proposed by the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Transport Workers’ Federation. The national executive of the federation has decided to put the idea before affiliations throughout New Zealand, and if sufficient support is forthcoming steps will be taken to establish the union. The Transport Workers’ Federation has 30,000 to 40,000 workers affiliated. It covers practically all major unions in the transport industry, with the exception of the Federated Seamen’s Union. The Auckland proposal would consolidate all these unions into one unit, in accordance with the plans of the New Zealand Federation of Labour for the organisation of the trade union movement on the basis of industrial unionism.

Many obstacles stand in the way of the amalgamation of unions in the transport industry, since most are powerful organisations as at present constituted and may not be enthusiastic about submerging their identity into the one union.

More progress is likely to be achieved with similar steps now being taken in the building trade. Officials of the New Zealand Carpenters’ Union, the New Zealand Plasterers’ Union, and the New Zealand Bricklayers’ Union will confer shortly on preliminary plans for amalgamation of the three unions into one big building trade union which would subsequently embrace the other craft unions in the industry.