Jobless want to mend split

Press, 27 May 1985, Page 9

Jobless want to mend split

PA Hamilton An umbrella body representing about 2000 unemployed and beneficiaries in the upper North Island has called on the Federation of Labour and Combined State Unions to help resolve a split in the unemployed movement. A spokesman for the Upper North Island Regional Structure, Mr Billy Baines, said it wanted the F.O.L. and C.S.U. to call a summit of groups representing the unemployed. The move followed from a meeting of Structure representatives in Hamilton on Friday to discuss the controversy last week over the “leaked" officials’ paper released by groups including the rival umbrella group, Te Roopu Rawakore O Aotearoa, he said. Mr Baines said that until

the groups got together to "hammer out" their differences. Structure found it difficult to accept Te Roopa as a bona-fide national organisation “owing to a number of circumstances which surround its establishment." The meeting should be as soon as possible, he said. In the meantime, the split was not helping the unemployed in the street. The release of the paper by unemployed groups was “rather silly" because the resulting storm had harmed relations between the unemployed as a whole and the Government, Mr Baines said. The 1984 General Election had for the first time given the unemployed access to the Government. "Few had seen inside Parliament before Labour came in," Mr Baines said.