ALLEGED PERSECUTION FOR WORKING ON THE WHARF A CABINETMAKERS' CASE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 72, 26 March 1914, Page 2

ALLEGED PERSECUTION FOR WORKING ON THE WHARF A CABINETMAKERS' CASE.

A young man, a cabinetmaker, called at The Evening Post yesterday afternoon, and made a statement whioh calls for attention. His complaint, in bvief, was that members of the Furniture Workers' Union were trying to keep him out of employment because he worked on the wharves during the strike. He explained that he was out of work during the early part of the waterside strike. Then he had a week at driving a cart, and eventually, about 24th November, he found employment on the wharves, and worked there till a week before the strike was declared off. For about seven weeks he was engaged at the factory of the Wellington Furniture Company, and his life there was pleasant till a union official came to the premises and spoke to the men, individually. From that time onwards the conditions were made intolerable in the factory, and the young man alleges that he was practically forced to leave. For the next fortnight the man was looking for work in tain, but yesterday he was taken on fey Air. E. Collie. Soon, he states, there was a hostile movement among the other employees, who gave the newcomer a very unpleasant time. On 29th December Mr. D. Moriarty, secretary of the union, wrote thus to the member who had been blacklisted: — "I have to advise you that at the annual meeting of our union, it was. unanimously resolved to call on you to send in your resignation as a member of same, it having been reported to us that you were a member of the new Wharf Workers' Union." The letter was addressed to the .ostracised man as an "Ex-cabinet-maker." Mr. Collie, interviewed by a Post reporter, said he had met the man for the first time yesterday, and had decided to give him work, but was told by his foreman that if he did so all the union hands in the factory would knock off, as he was regarded by members of the union as a scab. Mr. Collie then spoke to several of his men on the subject, and all expressed themselves strongly opposed to the man starting work. They told him that his name was on the black list in the Union Gazette, copies of which are sent to the secretary of every furniture union in New Zealand and Australia. It was pointed out to Mr. Collie that if he took the man on his shop would also be blacklisted, and that he would find himself unable to get hands anywhere. Although he (Mr. Collie) sympathised with the man, he felt he .could not take the risk of precipitating a strike, and he had no option, therefore, but to refuse to give the poor fellow a job. Mr. Collie added that he considered it was cruel of the union to stop the man from earning a living at his trade. The union might punish him in some way for working on the wharves, but to do what it was doing was altogether unfair. STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT. Mr. D. R. Kennedy, President of the Furniture Workers' Union, was asked to state the position from the union's point of view. The furniture workers, he said, are not trying to keep the man out of work. ' At a meeting of the ' union the man and two others who were in the same position were asked to resign. One of the others was Mr. Purdie, secretary of the new Waterside Workers' Union. The union "recognised it could not stop them ■ working, ' and it was not going to expel them. They had not resigned, and consequently the union could not take any further action. If any member of the union refused to work with them that had nothing to do with the union, which did not distate to its members as to what course they should take. The union, he reiterated, was npt keeping these men from work, but as they belonged to the new Waterside Workers' Union, the Furniture Workers' Union did not want them. They could work if they liked.