SUSTENANCE FOR STRIKERS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 47, 19 November 1936, Page 10

SUSTENANCE FOR STRIKERS

After being on strike for two weeks general labourers employed by the Wairoa Borough Council, it is reported, have agreed to return to work on the conditions offered them before they stopped work As promised, there is to be an.investigation of the trouble bv a Ministei If Cabinet Ministers are going to indulge requests to spend valuable time looking into paltry lalwur disputes which ought to be seuled between the parties through the. machinery of the law Parliament has provided they will have their hands full. It is setting up a bad principle. If the Labour Partv achieves its aim of controlling all the local 'bodies, strikes and politics will become undesirably related. But there is another aspect to the case. It appears that, acting no doubt under instructions from Wellington, the local employment office has advised that one week’s sustenance is to be paid to the z men affected. Is there any good reason, apart from politics, wh\ men who have defied the law. and through their own action have suffered loss in wages, should be supported by the taxpavers f Suppose there occurred a strike involwim hundreds of workers, would this instance be taken as a precedent? Would “sob politics be allowed to prevail over hard common sense?