RECIPROCITY

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 55, 6 March 1914, Page 11

RECIPROCITY

BETWEEN AUSTRALIAN" AND NEW ZEALAND TIMBER WORKERS. Mr. T. O'Byrne, secretary of the Southland Sawmill Workers' Union ; president of the New Zealand Timber Workers' Federation, and a member of tiie Invercargill City Council, has returned to New Zealand after a sev^n weeks' visit to Australia in. connection with matters affecting the interests of timber trade workers. Mr. O'Byrne, speaking to a Post reporter, stated that as a result of his visit a reciprocity would be established by which timber workers from New Zealand would be assured of obtaining work in Australia, and vice versa. He had visited Sydney, Melbourne, and Tasmania, and had personally met the officials controlling the unions in these places, *.he total membership of which was close on 10,000. Hitherto there had not been much, in common between the sawmill hands in Australia and this Dominion, but as the outcome of his visit, which was made with the authority of the federation of Which he was president, this state of affairs v-ould be materially changed, and a. New Zealander seeking employment in any of the three States mentioned would be assured not onlj; of obtaining employment, but of having *.he hand of good fellowship extended to him. Mr. O'Byrne left for vhe south by the Moeraki last evening.