PREFERENCE, AND RIGHT TO WORK

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 24, 28 July 1922, Page 6

PREFERENCE, AND RIGHT TO WORK

, In answer to a question asked in the House of Representatives, the Minister of Labour, Mr. Anderson, stated that, according to evidence adduced in a recent Court .ease, fees and levies in. a certain Labour union totalled £2 9s. The report' adds: " One of the Labour members, Mr. W. E. Parry (Auckland Central), wished to question the Minister about the fees' charged by the Land Agents' Association for membership, but Mr. Anderson was not to be drawn." From these sentences can easily be constructed the main lines of a contention'that is likely to cause some interest before very long. The central question is whether the granting, by State authority, of preference 'of employment to unionists implies that union fees and •■ levies must be kept reasonably low, and whether £2 9s can be described as reasonably low. Critics of preference to unionists will challenge the justice of permitting the monopolising of employment by a body that makes a membership charge too high for a poor man to pay j and friends of the unions,concerned will reply that they have as much right to make high charges as the Association of Land Agents or similar bodies. " The right to work" is, in its simple form, the right to do any work without charge or hindrance. But sbme occupations , necessarily, and in the interest of the community, are governed by a skill test, and some by a \ fidelity bond. Then come along unions of unskilled labour that apply no test of . skill, but which fix a fee that the worker must pay in order to provide funds to be used for administrative or fighting purposes, at the discretion of the^ executive of a " preferred " union.'' Even at first glance it "is plain that the subject is .a very difficult and delicate one.

The community has an interest in not being operated on by an uncertificated surgeon, and in not being' navigated by an uncertificated captain j it also has an interest in licensing drivers, and perhaps in licensing land agents; but the interest of the community .in giving preference of waterside em T ployment to a man' who can and will pay a certain fee, over a man who cannot or will not pay that fee, has still to be demonstrated. If preference of unions and compulsory membership charges are1 to co-exist in great unskilled or partly skilled employments, it becomes a question whether membership charges shall be restricted in the way in which license fees are restricted. Can the State continue to give preference of employment, in employments that absorb or should absorb large sections of the population, without securing some guarantee that a man shall not pay a charge, above a certain maximum', for the right to work? 'If members of a Labour organisation voluntarily paid fees to strengthen the fighting position of their executive, the case would be different. Compare the tax of Is per acre levied on commercial orchards, concerning which an ofiicial publication states:

- Probably the, orchard tax levied on the commercial growers in New Zealand is unique, for it is absolutely voluntary. The Government, at the instance of the growers, collects annually a tax of Is per acre from the commercial orchards. It bears the cost of collection, handing the gross proceeds to the New Zealand Fruitgrowers' Federation to be used in advertising New Zealand fruit, and for any other purpose which will advance the general interests of the industry. \ Here is a charge voluntarily paid to an executive for the purpose of securing the better marketing of the product of labour. A charge voluntarily paid by members of a union, to secure the better marketing of their labour, would be equally beyond criticism. But the union charges are not voluntary. to unionists would hardly survive excessive lnembev- ; ship charges. Still leas is it likely

to survive a resort to the strike weapon. Nor would it-be compatible,' for any length of time, with a fall in .output per man. Preference to unionists is compatible only with satisfactory service to the public ; and the same may be said of preference to land agents'or to certificate-holders in the various regulated trades or professions. The determining factor is the value of the service, ,and no preference will be retained that does not give the community a fair quid pro quo.