STRIKE METHODS AND ARBITRATION

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 104, 4 May 1915, Page 5

STRIKE METHODS AND ARBITRATION

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — In reporting the proceedings of the cooks and stewards' dispute in the Court of Arbitration your issue of yesterday credit* Mr. Carey with saying : "They had at all times relied upon, the Arbitration Act to right their grievances, and had not, like other eections of seamen, relied upon other methods in the past. . . There wae a section of the trade union movement which sought to convince workers that reliance on arbitration would not win them the conditions * they sought, and that the strike method was the most effective. In the shipping industry the respective merits of the two methods had been. keenly tested. . . '. The demands of the firemen and sailors for regulation of hands and preference were granted immediately they followed the strike method." This leaves the ordinary rea-der with the idea that other sections of seamen than cooks and stewards relied absolutely on the strike method to improve conditions, and that the demands of the firemen and sailors were conceded only ss the result of a strike. Speaking on behalf of the Federated Seamen's Union, which consists mostly- of firemen and sailors, there is no obstacle in the way in giving the assertion an> emphatic contradiction, and at the same time stating that on no occasion since 1890 have the organised seamen used the strike method to improve their lot. The system of arbitration has operated in New Zealand eince the commencement of the year 1895, and before it was law, and when it was meeting with heavy weather in Parliament and in certain trade union circles, the Seamen's Union wa« one of its staunch advocates. Shortly after it was placed on the Statute Book the organised seamen of the Dominion registered under its provisions, and in Wellington the Seamen's Union was the first body of men to obtain a. set of recommendations from the Conciliation Board, which was in February, 1897, and it wae the first body to obtain an award of tho Court, which, was in the same year. Since then it obtained awards of the Court in 1899, 1902, 1906, and in 1908, the latter being an agreement converted into an award. In 1911, 1912, and 1914 agreements were entered into with, the steamship owners after friendly conferences, the 1912 agreement being the only set of working conditions obtained outside the arbitration system. In no instance since the passing of this law has the Federated Seamen's Union resorted to the method of strike to improve the, conditions of its mambers-, its association with. the strike of 1913 being purely one of sympathy with the waterside worker, and not to improve the conditions of its members. It is to be regretted that Mr. Carey should resort to the class of alleged argument credited to him in pitting the conditions of one section of -workers against another to improve the position of those he for the moment represents. — I am, eta, W. T. YOUNG, Secretary Federated Seamen's Union. 30th April, 1915.