ROUND TABLE CLUB

Evening Post, Issue 11, 13 July 1936, Page 15

ROUND TABLE CLUB

WOMEN'S UNIONS

The Round Table Clubs monthly tea and lecture was held recently when Mr. N. Pharazyn was the guest of honour, having been asked to speak to the club on the much-discussed question of the Clerical Workers' Union. The best-intentioned legislation, Mr. Pharazyn said, could not be put into full effect without organisations being formed to see that it was carried out. Most trades'have their unions, but so far,, in. New Zealand there has been no organisation of clerical workers. The minimum wage would, of course, only apply to persons covered by an award. Regarding equal pay for equal work for men and women, Mr. Pharazyn said that they were up against the great difficulty of tradition. He '-was fully in favour of equal rates of pay, but it: would not be easy to make this great advancement at once, ,and he was afraid that, generally speaking, the standard of pay, for women would have to be fixed on a slightly lower basis than that for men. .

Turning to the broader aspect of unionism, Mr. Pharazyn spoke of the vital need in the world today for organised action for tho common good. It was man's task to develop his intellectual powers to their fullest, in order to control the use of technical and scientific power. Otherwise civilisation would collapse.■ We had to be socially minded,'to learn how to work together. Unionism was a method to get the workers together to discuss their problems and to build up a .social organisation 'in keeping with the age. There must be a large measure of democracy in such an organisation, even if it involved a certain amount of inefficiency. This was infinitely better ' than a ruthless dictatorship "in the hands of any one man, a fact so strongly emphasised in the world today. • The ideal union must be a democratic union whereby the officials could' be replaced if they were not working for the good of the whole organisation. The active interest and work of the union members would create true democracy. Questions and discussion followed, and Mr. Pharazyn was heartily thanked for his most interesting and informative address.