UNION'S ASSISTANCE TO STRIKERS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 140, 13 June 1912, Page 8

UNION'S ASSISTANCE TO STRIKERS

m ■ LABOUR FEDERATION'S ATTORNEY CONSULTED. Mr. J. Glover, secretary New Zealand Federation of Labour, to-day received the following legal opinion from Mr. P. J. O'Regan, attorney to the Federation : "Dear Sir, — In answer to your enquiry this morning I may say that I have noticed in. the newspapers that certain unions who aro bound by awards" have demurred to making a levy for the relief of the men at Waihi on the ground that being bound by the .Arbitration Act they would be guilty of an offence if they did so. I notice this opinion expressed rather, emphatically quite recently in one of the Wellington newspapers, the Auckland correspondent of which xegretted that a ''strong Government was not in office to punish the men who. have "broken the law" at Waihi. This is quite in accord with the standard of accuracy observed by the great majority of the newspapers where tho actions of working men are in issue. JJ'he legal position is quit® plain : A htrike is unlawful' only when the strikers are bound ■ by an award or industrial agreement — that is to say^ r hen they aro members of an industrial union and consequently under the jurisdiction of the Court of Arbitration. The Waihi miners are not under the jurisdiction of the Court of Arbitration and hence their strike is not an unlawful strike. Consequently it is not an offence for any unions, whether bound by an award of the court or not, to donate funds for the relief of the men on strike." |