The Dominion. FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 1908. LABOUR'S PIN PRICKS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 287, 28 August 1908, Page 6

The Dominion. FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 1908. LABOUR'S PIN PRICKS.

——H— —- ' The present sittings of the Arbitration Court in Wellington have disclosed an attitude on the part of organised labour toward tho employers which is, to say the least of it, very regrettable by all who desire to see harmonious relations existing between the two sections of industry. It has been unpleasantly forced upon any impartial observer of the proceedings of the court during the last few days that a great deal of the time of that judicial body is quite unnecessarily taken up in the hearing of cases which are so petty in themselves, and uniniportant in the issues involved, that they should never have been brou'ght into court at all, or, to put it another way, which would have been much better settled by mutual consent, and forbearance, on a desirable basis of a little " give and take." The suspicion is engendered, mistakenly it is to be hoped, that theso tri- j vial cases arc the pin-pricks with which united labour se.eks to harass employers on all and every occasion offering, by way of asserting its power. If that is labour's objective, it is as unworthy as it is mischievous. It is but another evidence that tho underlying intention of industrial legislation has been either misunderstood, or distorted, since its fundamental uggfulnen?! exist* only in tho remedial measures which prevent the cxploit--11. ■ ■

afcion of either Labour by Capital, or of Capital by Labour, and the minimising of disputes between the two. Ono or two instances of the trivial' cases referred to may be given by way of example, and, it is to be noted, that, from the half-hearted manner in which the prosecuting official of the Labour Department conducted them, it would appear as though the unions originating tho charges were forcing them upon the Court against, probably, the Department's advice—certainly, without its sympathy. Take the following case:— Humphries Bros, were called upon to answer a charge of having committed a breach of tho preference clause of the plasterers' award. Tho Inspector stated that the facts in the ease were admitted. The worker was in tho employ of the respondents as a labourer for five years. For two days he performed plasterers' work, for which he was paid the award rate. Subsequently he returned to liis duties as a labourer. It was not desired that a penalty should be imposed. One of the respondents stated that the plastering job which the worker in question was required to do was a small and unimportant one. The Court held that the offence was a trivial ono. It would simply record a breach. Again: Bcvcridge and Hum, licensees of the Grand Hotel, were charged, under the Cooks and Waiters' award, with paying less than the award rate to a waiter. Mr. Le Cren stated that the man was engaged for a week at 30s. a week, the award rate for regular'employees, being 275. 6d. He submitted, however, that the man was engaged as a casual worker, and in that case he was paid less than the award' rate. The award rate for casual workers is 10s. a day for the first three days, and after that the ordinary rate. His Honour thought that if the man was engaged for a week he'was not'a casual hand under the award. No order was made; Then thero is the case of some butchers? drivers being prosecuted for carrying some school-boys on their ..delivery carta the evidence showing that the men erred by a good-natured desire to give the boys a ride, and that the infringement of the spirit of the law forbidding boy labour was the slightest, if, indeed, there was any at all.

There were other equally petty cases, but those mentioned will sufficiently indicate' the mistaken tactics of the unions in rushing such charges before the Arbitration Court, instead of amicably discussing the matters in dispute with the employers concerned, and so arriving at a friendly understanding, and a settlement having no bitterness behind' it. In the best interests of both employees and employers most of these small breaches of .the industrial law were far better so settled than by recourse to the court, and time and money would both be saved thereby. But, what is more important, there would not exist these continued pinpricks by which the' employers are at present harassed, and which serve only to perpetuate a state of tension between them and the employees.