WORK AND WAGES.

Evening Star, Issue 15076, 7 January 1913, Page 7

WORK AND WAGES.

DUNEDIN TRAWLERS. At a meeting of the Dunedin Trawlers’ Industrial Union of "Workers, held last evening, it was resolved to send Mr S. Boreham as a delegate to the conference to be held in Wellington on the 21st inst. During the discussion it was made clear that, owing to the bitter opposition, even to conciliation and industrial disputes, by small employers of labor the time has armed when some definite stand must be taken by small industrial unions of wo-keus to push to the front as incorporated bodies of working men, and this, it was said, coidd be done only by appealing to the larger registered bodies of workers to assist". GENERAL LABOR LIES. The annua] report of the General Laborers’ Union, published in Wellington, contains the following paragraphs:—“ The question of an increase in the late of wages has been the main item of consideration with our organisation, bur, if we can turn our attention to the means whereby the

expense nf living could be seriously "grappled with we shall achieve better results than wo have been doing in devoting all our attention to the wages question. In any case, progress through wage increases is very slow, and does not admit of continued and sustained activity. Apart altogether from the mere wages question, there is much to be done through the local bodies to improve the working-class conditions. The slum areas of a city are created by the greed of landlordism. Of necessity the poorest-paid workers in the community are the persons forced into the cheapest and most congested living areas. These congested districts may he improved and the workers’ lot bettered by a sane local government.”