“A MESS OF POTTAGE”

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 159, 31 March 1922, Page 6

“A MESS OF POTTAGE”

UNIONS AND THE PREFERENCE CLAUSE

MASTER BAKERS MAKE A PROTEST

Tlie question of preference to unionists provoked some rather warm discussion at the Conciliation Council sitting yesterday.

Mr. Grenfell, on behalf of tho master bakers, strongly opposed any form of preference. He said that if th* Court put in their clause that was ijieir affair, but tho employers would not argee to it unless they were compelled to. It was objected that tho effect of the system had bean to make the unions close corporations, shutting out from work men who did not see eyo to eye with them.

Mr. Collins, for the union, contended that years ago tho employers were bursting to get the clause in, so that unions, instead of charging three guineas for membership, were compelled to accept anyone as a member who paid five shillings. At ono time the unions could choose their members on the ground that they were qualific.fi in their work, but now anyone could join. If they sent one of these unqualified men along to an employer, they wore soon “called over the coals”, for it. He thought they would be better off without the clause, and it was the employers’ business to rub it out.

Mr. Grenfell said the position the employers took up was that they asked for the exclusion of the preference clause. It was quite wrong for Mr. Collins to say that the employers had originally asked for it. What they had done was to see that, when one was inserted, it did not detrimentally affect the outsider. The unions were willing to do anything for the sake of the clause, and they forfeited their right to prescribe that workers should be efficient for the sake of getting the clause—tlfey had sold their birthright for a mess of pottage. A fair discrimination in regard to efficient workers would not be objected to by anyone, but it was the admission of the incompetent to full rights which _ was obnoxious. If the workers insisted on preference, it was only natural every effort would bo made to prevent injustice. Mr. Collins said that if the Court deleted the clause the unions would have to reconsider their position. He contended that the object of Mr. Grenfell and the employers was to smash the unions. This Mr. Grenfell strenuously denied, and the subject dropped.