ACTION ENDORSED

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 51, 24 November 1930, Page 12

ACTION ENDORSED

Labour Alliance Protest UNEMPLOYMENT BOARD Method of Appointment TRADES HALL MEETING With the exception of a few interjections and a little tittering over low-toned remarks during question time, an attentive hearing was accorded the secretary of the Alliance of Labour, Mr J. Roberts, when he spoke at the Trades Hall last evening in defence of the attitude _ the alliance had taken up in objecting to the method of appointment to the Unemployment Board.

Every seat in the hall was occupied. The conflict of opinion between the alliance and the Wellington Trades and Labour Council had led many people to believe that there would be “something doing”, but those who went to the meeting expecting excitement were disappointed. The majority of those in the hall appeared to be in sympathy with the attitude of the alliance. When Mr. Roberts had completed his address a resolution was moved endorsing the action taken in demanding that the workers have the right to elect their own representatives to the Unemployment Board. A show of hands was called for and this showed that the resolution had the support of the majority, there being about thirty-five dissentients. The resolution also deplored the action of the Wellington Trades and Labour Council in oining with the “capitalistic Press, the Government and the Welfare League and the anti-Labour forces” in their attack on the alliance, called on the trade unions not to recognise the men appointed to the board as their representatives but only as civil servants, and expressed the opinion that the alliance should not cease in its efforts to obtain for the organised workers the right to select whom they choose. An amendment that no workers should accept nomination and that workers should be advised not to pay the levy was not accepted. Just before the meeting closed a man near the rear of the hall moved that the action of Messrs. O. Mcßryne and W. Bromley be repudiated by those present in the hall as their action was of no use to the workers of New Zealand. This motion was carried. Workers’ Decision Sought. Mr. A Cook, president of the alliance, was in the chair. He said the meeting had been convened by the alliance to justify the attitude it had adopted -in other words, to allow the unions to judge if the action taken in opposition to the Minister’s appointment of representatives to the Unemployment Board without giving the industrial unions the right to elect their own representatives, was justi“We want the workers to-night, after they have heard Mr. Roberts put tiie case for the alliance, to give a decision as to whether the peculiar attitude taken up bv the Wellington Trades and Labour Council, backed up by the Auckland Trades and Labour Council, is right or not,” said Mr. Cook. “The alliance is not standing alone in this question. There are many unions not affiliated to the alliance whole-heartedly supporting the iction it has taken. The trades unions ire going to have no confidence in any men who accept appointment by the Government and not by the trades unions of this country. “The only clean thing a man can do is to refuse to accept nomination until the trades unions have the right to elect their representatives. Not 3 per cent, of’the industrial organisations in New Zealand nominated the iluckland representatives, We should demand to know who nominated the men appointed. The Minister has appointed whom he thinks fit, and protest meetings should be held throughout the country to let him know we do not stand for that position.” “A Tragedy.” “We have called this meeting, it is our meeting, and we are going to state our case, whether Mr. Bromley likes it or out,” said Mra. Roberts, when referring to the latter written to him by Mr. W. Bromlem, in which the latter had invited him to debate the question. “As far as Labour is concerned, the position this past week has been a tragedy. It is not my desire to cross swords with anyone in the Labour movement.” Mr. Roberts denied statements which, he said, had been made, that the alliance did not stand for an unemployment insurance scheme, and that it had favoured a flat tax. “If w" have differences in the Labour movement, let us get together and settle them ourselves,” he said, “but don’t let us make fools of ourselves by going into the papers that chuckle at the differences in the Labour movement. If the trades unions object to the democratic right of the workers to elect their own representatives, then it seems to me it is time they went out of existence. If you back up the Minister of Labour in appointing members to the board, then there is only another step, when the Government will be selecting your representative on the Arbitration Court for you, and won’t that be a beautiful opportunity to reduce the wages of the workers? The Labour movement claims for the workers the right to select their own representatives in any capacity whatever.” Wages Reduction. “The Government has on two occasions burst up the Labour movement by dangling jobs before trade union officials,” continued Mr. Roberts, who said that there was a danger of the Press of New Zealand dividing the workers with a view to a wages reduction. “As long as the Minister adopts his present attitude we will not recognise the men he has appointed as anything else but Government servants. The right to elect our representatives is one we cannot forgo. “When one section rushes in and hands over to the Government, the Press and the Welfare League a stick with which to hammer us we are in duty bound to defend ourselves. I believe that the action taken by the alliance will receive the support of 95 per cent, of the trades unions of New Zealand. We are not going to hand over our rights without a fight. Until this right is conceded any appointee cannot be a representative'of the Labour movement.” (Applause.) The resolution endorsing the action of the alliance was carried. Waited Too Long. “I, like Mr. Roberts,’’ said a woman, at the rear of the hall, “have a long memory and cannot recollect him calling a meeting while Parliament was sitting to protest. It seems to me like closing the stable door after the horse had gone.” Mr. Roberts explained that he had been out of New Zealand nnd only recently returned from the Geneva Conference Another woman remarked that it seemed to her that too much had been assumed. “You always wait till a thing is law before you act,” she said. A man near the back of the hall said that apparently resolutions had been carried whereby nomination would be refused unless the unions were granted their rights to appoint whom they wished. “If Bromley breaks a resolution he is a scab,” he said, “but I want to know why Roberts has not turned around nnd called him a scab.” Mr. Roberts said lie avoided abusing people from the platform. After a few other questions the meeting closed.