TRADES UNION POWERS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 879, 27 July 1910, Page 4

TRADES UNION POWERS.

The case in which.the Builders' Union sued a, firm of builders on Monday, claiming a penalty of.£lo for a breach of award committed by employing an alleged non-unionist, throws-an interesting light on some aspects of trades unionism. The facts are simple enough. The labourer in question had got into arrears with his union dues, but had remained in employment. He is at present a "financial" member of: the union, but was apparently not "financial" in May last. During May the union notified the employer firm that the man was a defaulter on the union's bookstand intimated that if he continued to be employed without being reinstated on the books a breach of award would be commit'tcd. . The employer did not dismiss the man, and the union instituted the case that was heard on Monday and decided in favour of _ the defendant firm: Various questions were raised in the course'of .the hearing, such as. the. authority of a union to strike a member's name off the roll, or, after striking his name off, to treat his payments on readmission as being merely in liquidation of- arrears; but these are points-that need' not concern us, as they will assuredly not concern the public, which will take only a broad view of the ethics of tho affair., One of the prime lessons of the case is thofruitfulness in injustice "and oppression of the principle of "preference to unionists." In those countries, such as Great Britain, in which trades unionism is not clothed by statute with the enormous powers and privileges conferred upon the unions by New Zealand law, there is something to be said for this preference. Something —but very little as compared with what can be urged against the coercion of the free labourer. In New Zealand, however, even the meagre excuses that can be _ offered in Great Britain cannot be listened to.

It is apparent that a union is able to reduce to unemployment and beggary, and kecp_ in unemployment, so far as his ordinary occupation is concerned, any member of it who, whether through ill-luck or any other cause, becomes_ "unfinancial." If there is one thing upon which our Labour friends' have insisted above all others, it is that "bloated capital" "grinds down" the worker— that the average worker can keep his head above water only by exercising the utmost economy. We should therefore expect that a trades union would be sufficiently sympathetic with what they call the hard lot of the'toiler to treat with leniency any member who gets into arrears with his weekly payments. Even should a union, in such a case, decide that severity was necessary, wo should expect that the ' severity would stop short of forcing the defaulter into the-ranks of the.unemployed—that at any rate there would he no attempt to deprive him, and those dependent ' upon hini, of a means of livelihood. 'Wc can go further and say that this is what people do expect, and what they be.liere is the case. The action of the-

Builders' Union shows us, however, that this is to impute a sentimentalism to which it is superior. The employers in the case under notice seem to have failed to appreciate the propriety of the union's demand that the employee concerned should be turned out on the streets to earn his living as best he might at a trade not his own. They kept the man at work. What will strike most people is the difference between the attitude of the union over the nondismissal of the allegedly "unfinancial" member and the attitude that is generally'taken up when, for some good and sufficient reason, an employer dares to dispense with a unionist who is not out of favour with his union. The obvious' thing to say is that trades unionism will not grow in public esteem by such prosecutions as the one under notice; but what is less obvious, but much more important, is the fact that this particular case is only a chip on the current, which is running deep and strong towards the subjection of our society to trades union rule.