CONTROL BY WORKERS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 141, 12 December 1923, Page 15

CONTROL BY WORKERS

PEECEDENT BY GOVERNMENT.

lt argued in- certainv sections of the Labour movement' ;ttiat having offered the States miners the. right of equal representation with the Department: on the administering board of the State ■ mines in connection with the cooperative working proposal, the Minister of; Mines has/created, a precedent of control by the workers which he cannot logically: refuse in' other industries. The opinion is • being expressed that every industrial ■'.■ organisation whose members are in the employ of public authorities should hasten to exploit the precedent to the full, and that unless fish is to be made of one and flesh of another, what the miners are entitled to must be yielded also to other workers. As an instance, the grievances board petitioned for by the Amalgamated Society of Railway, Servants last session is being referred to. Why,/ asks the "Maoriland Worker," in commenting on the subject,.should not the railwayman turn the precedent in respect to th,e, miners to account in pushing 'their-: demand, if or a permanent grievances:' board, a mild suggestion compared -with the radical proposals of the Mines Department, because the society's proposals never embodied any powers of administration. The paper argues that the Government can no longer persist in its refusal of the board, as the Minister o£ Mines has cut the ground from beneath the feet of the Government. 'It:is obvious," states "The Worker." "that, argumentatively, the industrial 'unions have the Government in a cleft-stick, and they will be foolish if they>do not make the most of their advantage. They must act to gain a general application of the principle in the State-mines scheme, not only because it ultimately will make them masters in their own industry, but because it will inevitably lead to the unification of sectional unionism and to an industrial Parliament. Amplify the Hon. G. J Anderson's plan till it covers the coal resources of New Zealand, and one union for all coalmine - workers becomes a sheei\ necessity as part of the economy of administration; apply it to the railways- and other industries, and a Cabinet of- industrial representatives must naturally evolve as th e only efficient means of organising the national operations. .. . . Mr. Anderson has given

the unions an opportunity to vindicate their ..principles and to free themselves from.wagedom if they use it rightly."