REGISTRATION OF UNIONS.

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 63, 11 September 1924, Page 5

REGISTRATION OF UNIONS.

Leave to introduce an Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Bill was given Mr. A. L. Monteith (Wellington East) in the House of Representatives yesterday.

As the law stands it is possible for an industrial union of workers to be registered on the application of fifteen persons. Section 21 of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, 1908, empowers an industrial union to cancel its registration. Before cancellation can be granted, however, the Registrar of Industrial "Unions must be satisfied that the majority of the members of tho union desire cancellation, and the practical result is that a ballot is always taken before cancellation is decided on, though even in that event the Registrar is still entitled to refuse cancellation, unless he is satisfied that the majority of the members who voted in favour of it comprise a majority of the members iof the union. Notwithstanding, however, that cancellation may have been brought j about by an overwhelming majority of j the members, yet the law allows- fifteen i of the dissenting minority to obtain the i registration of a new union immediately j afterwards. The present Bill is calculated to remove this anomaly by providing that once registration has been duly cancelled, a new union shall not bo registered in succession to that which has become defunct until and unless tha workers concerned have so decided by ballot.