NO-CONFIDENCE VOTE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 72, 17 December 1938, Page 13

NO-CONFIDENCE VOTE

Meeting Of Trade Union

Members

OFFICER OF NATIONAL

EXECUTIVE

By Telegraph—Press Association.

AUCKLAND, December 16.

Interpreted as an initial step in a campaign to purge the industrial labour movement in Auckland of extreme elements is the action of the .District Council of the Federation of Labour, at a largely-attended meeting in the Trades Hall last evening, in expressing no confidence in its sole representative on the federation’s national executive, Mr. T. Stanley. The decision, which was made on a division of 65 to 55, was reached after nearly three hours’ deliberation, and it supports the vie wof many officials ol the movement that Mr. Stanley opposed the recommendation by the national executive to the men involved in the Otabuliu workshops strike to return to work pending an investigation of their alleged grievances. It is believed that Mr. Stanley’s resignation from the national executive may follow. An emphatic denial of the charges made against him was, given by -Mr. Stanley, who is secretary of the Builders’ and General Labourers’ Union. “My resignation will not follow,” he said. “When I am put out I will be out, but I will not take the so-called gentlemanly way of resigning.” He denied emphatically the charges of speaking contrary to the decisions of the national organization on the occasion of the recent railway workshops dispute, and said that overwhelming evidence submitted to the meeting substantiated his denial. Neither did the official minutes bear out the charges made against him. He added that representatives of the unions involved in the dispute were unanimous in this.

“I believe,” he added, “that when the trade union movement receives the full facts of the case and discusses them in an unbiased atmosphere, the decision will not The incident, in my own opinion, is in consequence of the Red-baiting campaign launched by interests hostile to the Labour movement in the vain hope of disrupting the trade union movement and weakening its support for the Labour Government.”