REGISTRY OFFICES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 24, 23 October 1907, Page 10

REGISTRY OFFICES.

j Sir, —In your report of a mooting of regis- | try office ; proprietors, held on Monday night, ' one speaker is. reported to have alleged that a recent arrival from England-had' Seen un~ ' ablo to secure work, despite the fact that he -' had joined both.the: Cooks and Waiters Union and:tho Bakers . Union; and, further, that it .was. only on application to a registry office that ho had been .able to securo work. Just a word or . two iu refutation of the alleged statement. The man referred to 1 joined my Union on. the one day, and on the ■ noxt was sent to fill-a temporary billet; "" Later on ho was told of a billet with much higher wages than the 0110 ho at:present has secured through the kindliness of tho registry office, and refused to entertain-it. : Fur- '■/ ther, if it were not for a flaw in the Conciliation and Arbitration ; Act, which the '. ' amending Bill will rectify, ho could not hava 1 secured his present situation through any influence. whatever, had ho not been a member of the Cooks and Waiters' Union. That, hia employer should ignore the Union and patron-, iso a registry office is' as muclr deplored by my Union as by tho man himself. If he and other members refused to call at registry bfficcs, employers .would perforco have' ro- ' course to tho Union offices. Already tho ma-jority-of them are'now doing so, , and with . financial satisfaction to themselves and tho members of the Union. ; As to the matter of tho Bakers' Union failing to supply him with a billet, Mr: Collinst, the secretary, may, perhaps, be able to throw light'on the matter, but of this lam per- , sonally cognisant, that if he could not got a job' through the Bakers' .Union, lie would . never get it through a registry office, because of tho fact that never within the past two or three years has any employer in the bakery trade oyer applied 'to any person but tho ... secretary of the Bakers' Union for a worker, and this because of the loyalty of tho local bakers to their' Union. When tho now arrival has been long- enough in the Dominion' to bo as loyal to his Union as tho local-bakers ho will trust the Union,, and refuse to bo exploited by any registry office keeper, or give them the opportunity of using his complaints as an argument for tho retention of excessive fees as a. means of further exploiting himself ; and other ." now, arrivals."—l am, etc., E. J. CAREY, . Secretary, Cooks and Waiters Union. Wellington, October 22.