The Dominion MONDAY, ABRIL 28, 1924. A STRIKE SETTLEMENT OVERTURE

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 181, 28 April 1924, Page 6

The Dominion MONDAY, ABRIL 28, 1924. A STRIKE SETTLEMENT OVERTURE

In the extent to which it indicates a desire for settlement, the offer of the executive of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants to refer their dispute with the Government to a commission will be welcomed. Obviously, however, some amendments in detail are called for before the offer can be regarded as wholly acceptable. As it stands, for instance, the proposal is saddled with precisely the same condition as caused’ the breakdown of the First Wages Board set up to deal with the dispute. It repeats the impossible demand that wages should be considered apart from other conditions of railway employment. The chairman of the first Wages Board made it clear that it was impracticable to consider wages without also and at the same time considering working conditions. Yet the A.S.R.S. executive now asks the Government to set up a commission and place it at the outset in a fake position by imposing this impossible condition on its investigation. The appointment of a tribunal thus hampered and shackled evidently w'ould be a waste of time. If a commission is to be set up it must be given full power to deal freely on their merits with the whole of the questions in dispute. Then, again, in submitting its proposal, the A.S.R.S. executive states that the railwaymen will go back to work on the date on which the commission commences its sittings. The right course obviously is that the railwaymen should resume duty as a preliminary to the opening of the new investigation. Taking it for granted that the proposal of the railwaymen’s executive is made in good faith, it must be supposed that they are ready to abide by the decision of the projected tribunal. In that case there is no possible reason why the public should continue to suffer inconvenience and hardship, and the railwaymen to lose their wages, during any interval that may elapse before the commission can be brought together. Very little if any exception can be taken to the list of names submitted by the A.S.R.S. executive as members of the proposed commission. At the same time, and admitting that those whose names arc thus submitted would form a very capable board of inquiry, one side in a dispute can hardly expect to bo allowed to nominate the whole of the members of a settlement tribunal. While the Government may be prepared to accept the commission proposed by the A.S.R.S., it might quite reasonably insist on suggesting some alternative names. There is no reason why agreement should not be reached in regard to the creation of a commission. Agreement in this matter might, of course, easily have been reached without any such hasty and ill-advised action as the A.S.R.S. executive took in declaring a strike. If matters are allowed to take their natural course, there is not much doubt that a return can be made speedily to peaceful and constitutional methods. It is fairly clear that the railwaymen have been badly led, and that the last thing a great majority of their number expected or desired was to find themselves involved in a strike. There has been a lack of candour on the part of the A.S.R.S. executive in regard to the strike ballot. In the first place the issues submitted to a ballot placed many of the railway employees in a false position, since they had no opportunity of voting on alternative issue* Then again the number of those who voted in the ballot has not been disclosed. It was announced by the executive that 81 per cent, of the votes cast were in favour of a strike. No particulars were given, however, in regard to the number of railwaymen who did not vote. A general impression also prevails that the bulk of the railwaymen did not anticipate an actual strike. No doubt many merely voted to give their executive power to call a strike in the belief that the executive would thus be armed with a useful weapon in the negotiations which were then proceeding, but in the belief, also, that every possible effort would be made to reach a settlement before there was any resort to strike tactics. In the event, however, the A.S.R.S. executive abruptly ended negotiations at a stage when they were offered a wages tribunal which no doubt would have dealt with the issues in dispute in a manner quite satisfactory to the majority of the railway workers. The false step taken by their executive has cost the railwaymen a considerable loss in wages, and undoubtedly has prejudiced their case in the eyes of the public, who naturally resent the expense, inconvenience, and hardship to which they have needlessly been subjected. An impartial and unhampered investigation of the issues in dispute still represents, however, the right approach to a settlement. It may be hoped, therefore, that the negotiates now reopened by the A.S.R.S. will be carried through in a reasonable spirit, and that the appointment of a tribunal satisfactory to all parties will be the outcome.