DEPUTATION WAITING

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 81, 2 October 1924, Page 6

DEPUTATION WAITING

WORKERS, NOT AGITATORS.

One of the main charges laid against labour organisations in the past," remarked the president of the Trades and Labour Councils' Federation, Mr. J. Read, to a "Post" reporter to-day, "has been that their executives almost invariably have been comprised of paid permanent officials in the Labour movement, who have been characterised very frequently .as. 'agitators.' In contradistinction to this, the recently-formed Trades and-Labour Councils' Federation Executive is composed,. with the exception of tho president, entirely of men following trades and callings for daily wages. These men, who are mostly working under awards making provision for a 44-hour week, in common with others in Labour circles in the Dominion, were naturally deeply concerned at the attack of the Government on the 44-hour ■week by the increasing of the. hours of railway workers. They desired .that tho Prime Minister should receive a' deputation representative of Trades Councils in protest against the Government's action, and asked that the deputation should be-received in tho evening, which would entail no pecuniary loss to themselves, and would not be likely to inconvenience their employers by reason of their absence from work; but Mr. Massey has consistently turned them down, and is unwilling to receive the deputation except during the daytime. The. claim that tho Government is actuated by a desire to help the workers, as has been frequently' slated by the Prime Minister and his fellow-members of the Reform Party, suggests that at least Mr. Massey might have extended the courtesy of meeting the men at a time which would have been most convenient to them, and which would not have entailed, a great call upon his time. It would have left a better taste in the. mouth of Labour generally throughout "the Dominion."