UNION FUNDS AND FEES

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 84, 6 October 1922, Page 6

UNION FUNDS AND FEES

Two provisions which recent events have shown to be timely are contained in the Industrial Oonciliation and Arbitration Amendment Bill which has been introduced in the House of Representatives. The first proposal is that industrial unions and similarorganisations shall be required to keep proper accounts and submit to the Registrar of Industrial Unions aiV audited ; statement of assets and liabilities and receipts and payments. The Registrar is empowered to inspect the books and accounts of a union or to require that they shall be submitted to a public auditor. When reference has been made in the House of Representatives to the disposal of union funds, Labour members have been inclined to adopt a resentful attitude; and to look upon questions as intended merely to discredit the unions. We do not think that such an attitude is wise, or that members'will have warrant for persisting in it when the eminently fair provision in the Bill comes to be considered. The State, for the pVotection of labour and the maintenance .of industrial peace, has provided machinery -for the establishment of unions,-- Such organisations have extensive powers and numerous privileges under the law. 'They have obligations also. One of the powers is the collection of subscriptions from members, and one of the obligations is to safeguard the funds so accumulated so that members may be benefited. The State, having conferred the power, may rightly insist upon acceptance of the obligation. Members who attempt to deny this right to the State will not be affording the'most convincing proof of their contention that union funds are rightly adminisiier-

ed- / ' .»' The other important proposal to which we have alluded places a restriction upon the*collection of entrance fees from new members. It is quite a " moderate restriction, merely limiting the entrance fee to 5s- and providing that no levy or other charge (other than the subscription provided for In the union's rules) shall become payable in the first month of membership. It is not quite clear whether this permits the collection of a year's subscription iri* advance. If it does, the clause may be deemed,even too moderate. The clause requires careful scrutiny to atssure that it achieves its purpose. ' For many years the preference to unionists clause included,, in most awards (and known as "the Com*t's clause") has made, preference conditional on limitation of the entrance fee to 5s and the subscription to 6d a week. Unions working under industrial agreements, however, have not always followed the sound principle of the Arbitration Court. They have had freedom to demand, and have demanded, entrance fees an<jl advance payments which in effect, if hot in intention, have debarred from membership and from the right to work the very men to whom that right should first be given—those who are unable to pay a premium for the right. As drafted in the Bill, the clause to stop such practices does not refer to the prefei'ence principle, but preference cannot be omitted from consideration. Preference cannot be co-existent with closed unions. Further, closed unions mean a vested interest for the members. That vested interest may be granted when it is the reward of years of apprenticeship or of proficiency in examination, where such apprenticeship or examination ia necessary, for the protection or efficient service of the public. Even" sp, tlie vested interest must be shared with all who display a like proficiency- or serve a similar apprenticeship. Being first in and elosiug the door i

after one gives no similar right, nor does it justify any claim, for heavy fees from those who come knocking later.