RIGHT TO WORK

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 24, 28 July 1922, Page 5

RIGHT TO WORK

A LABOUR MEMBER'S PROPOSALS.

The right to work is the principle laid down in the Unemployed Workers Bill, the second reading of which was moved by Mr. P. Fraser (Wellington Central) in the House of Representatives last night. - Mr. Fraser stated that the measure differed to that which he introduced last session. Last session's '"Bill was ruled out on the ground that it was an appropriation Bill. Therefore, he was able to give in skeleton form only Labour's policy for dealing with unemployment. His Bill simply laid down tho principle of the right to work, and authorised the Governor-General to make regulations necessary for. carrying out provisions of the Act. Parliament, he said, could not afford to ignore the problem 'of unemployment.' So far the problem had not been seriously grappled with, and serious hardships had arisen because of the lack of work, ■ The system which employed a man in prosperity and threw him aside in times.of.a slump was a. bad system. The Labour Party stood, positively, for the policy of providing work as a right. Work could not he provided as by a fairy wand, and while waiting a man should be maintained up to a decent standard of living. He would set up an Unemployment Board to go into the whole question, even to the working of the Government labour exchanges. At present there.was no system, no organisation, and in Wellington three agencies ovoi-lapped. Mr. A. Harris (Waitemata) urged the establishment of a compulsory social insurance scheme. ,

The second reading was agreed to on the voices, and the Bill was referred to the Labour Bills Committee.