THE LABOUR MOVEMENT

Evening Star, Issue 19942, 11 August 1928, Page 21

THE LABOUR MOVEMENT

[By Veteran.] Brief contributions on matters with reference to the Labour Movement are invited, APPRENTICES. At tho July sitting of the Arbitration Court in Auckland the apprentice question came in for a good deal of discussion. The painters, furniture trades, and bootmakers were mostly concerned The master painters applied for a reduction in wages for apprentices, and this was strongly opposed by tho union. The question had been before the court in Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. The court has yet to hoar evidence in Wanganui. The Auckland secretary (Mr H. Campbell) strongly opposed any alteration. Ono of the witnesses for tho applicants, an employer himself, made the statement that the boys wasted their wages on dances, pictures, and cigarettes, but admitted that the apprentice in las first year's was pat on to rough brushwork and it was a payable proposition to tho employer, for he more than made his wages; but later on, at inside work, high-class painting and paperhauging. it did not pay. In cross-examination lie admitted that a fair price for paperhanging was 2s 6d a roll, and a journeyman could hang sixteen rolls in a day, but with an apprentice he could do an additional two or three rolls in the day. From this the union advocate drew tho inference that even at the higher-class work an apprentice earned his pay. The contention of the union is that m comparison with wages granted to apprentices in other trades the other apprentices are underpaid and not the painters’ boys overpaid, as put forward by the employers. This was shown by the fact that the schedule rates under the painters’ apprenticeship order* is under tho 60 per cent, increase on 1914 rates, which was the percentage adopted by the court as warranted by the increase in the coat of living figures as furnished by the Government Statistician. However, it is for the court to decide after hearing Wanganui on the question. » W * * APPRENTICESHIP IN CANADA. A Bill to provide for apprenticeship training in the building trades has passed its third reading in the Ontario Parliament. This legislation, which is supported by employers and trade unions, is tho first of its kind to be introduced in Canada. The Bill provides for tho control aud regulation o| apprentice training in the five trades of bricklaying, masonry, carpentry, painting and_ decorating, and plastering. According to the Prime Minister of Ontario, the Hon, G. H. Ferguson, tho system will be “tried out” on the apprentices of tho building trade for two or three years, and if it meets with approval it will then bo extended to other trades. <k ifr • COMMUNISTS IN AUSTRALIA. It has been disclosed that the Communist Party intends to enter upon & widespread campaign against the Australian Labour Party in Queensland. Having mot with a measure of success in New South Wales, owing to the treacherous intrigue between certain individuals in control of tho Labour political machine and leading members of tho Communist Party, the Communists now intend to devote their activities to the northern State. In a statement issued last week it was disclosed that at the last Congress of the Communist International in Moscow the following resolution was carried at the instance of tho Australian delegates:—“ It is essential that the Communist Party should formulate a definite and clear policy upon which to take the lead in the opposition to tho M'Corraack Government at tho coming State elections, drawing in alongside of tho party the largest possible number of working-class organisations and dissatisfied working-class elements.

“ Tho fight in Queensland presents exceptional difficulties in view of tho fact that two of the leading and most militant unions—railways and meat workers—from which support against the reactionary Labour Government could bo obtained, have withdrawn their affiliation from tho Labour Party.” At the next State elections in Queensland a direct Communist candidate, advocating the programme of tho party, will bo put forward to contest scats in throe or four carefully-selected constituencies where members of the M'Cormack Government are seeking re-election and when Communist candidates stand a good chance of polling well. In as many constituencies as possible the Communists will work to set up workers’ electoral committees round tho programme of the Labour Party left-wingers, and in all other constituencies they will conduct a campaign against tho M'Cormack Government candidates. This campangn will include demands for the repudiation of the policy followed previously by the Labour Government. The statement calls’on “sympathisers, left-wingers, _ militants, and all honest workers within the A.L.P.” to co-operate in challenging the capitalistic agents within the working-class movement.

In characteristic language tho Communist Party lias branded the Labour Premier of Queensland (Mr M‘Cormack) as “a servile tool of the employers” and “an aspiring Mussolini.” . .

Replying to a statement issued by the Communist Party that it intended to conduct a campaign of hostility towards the Queensland State Labour Government, the Labour Premier of Queensland (Mr M’Cormack) said last week that tho agents of Moscow had been secretly engaged on their insidious propaganda for some years, and if they attempted their disruptive tactics in Queensland they would get short shrift.

“Their open declaration of hostility towards the Government,” _ added Mr M'Cormack, “will bring this nefarious crew, who have nothing in common with Australian sentiment, into the open. I take little notice or their talk about dividing Labour politically, because numerically they have very little power in constituencies. But there is little doubt that these men have done enormous injury to Australian industry, and if Moxon and his Moscow agents attempt their disruptive tactics in tins State they will meet short shrift. The law of the State at present is not capable of dealing with men who are prepared to disrupt industry, but the Government will not hesitate to ask Parliament for the necessary power to protect our industry against disruption.” * * * IMPROVEMENT IN MINERS’ CONDITIONS. At least one good, thing is being dons in the mining industry, says a London paper. The first of four demonstration installations of pit-head baths, on which the Miners’ Welfare Committee is spending £16,000, was lately opened by Lord Chelmsford at Pooley Hall Colliery, near Birmingham. Instead of returning home covered from head to foot with coal dust and grime, the miners will now go home all spick and span, leaving their dirty working clothes at the baths. This is the kind of thing the miners sorely need. It emphasises the progress which has been made since the evil days, not so very long ago, when the men worked in twelvediour shifts; when there was no proper ventilation of the mines, and when a man who was hurt lay waiting for a coal cart to take Jiim to hospital.

TIN MINERS IN NEW SOUTH WALES. On ths ground that the tin mining industry in New South Wales can afford to pay a little higher wage to the employees, the New South Wales Deputy Industrial Commissioner (Mr Kavanagh) increased the rates of metalliferous miners under tho New South Wales State award by 3s per week, or 6d per day. Mr Kavanagh remarked that m September, 1926, the Conciliation Committee made an award for tho industry, in which the adult rates were increased by 9s a week. On appeal the rates were reduced by 4s 6d a week. Since then tho committee had added a further increase to miners’ rates only of 3s a week. When tho 4s 6d was added to the rates in 1926 the selling price of tin was £306 8s 9d per ton, and was now quoted at £221 2s 2d a ton. “In these circumstances,” said Mr Kavanagh, “my remarks in the judgment of 1926. that the condition of industry is such that in the interests of workers as well as those of industry the lightest possible burden should bo imposed upon it, are as true to-day as they were at that time. “Having regard, however, to the many disabilities that tho employees in the industry had to contend with, especially the underground workers,” Mr Kavanagh said, “ the rates could, without any injury to the industry, bo brought a little nearer to those prevailing in other industries in which men were employed doing similar work, hut under most favourable conditions,” —Australian ‘Worker.’ « * e * OVER 7,000,000 NEAR POVERTY LINE. Although the official number of unemployed in Great Britain is set down at 1,220,000, it is computed that tho total population on or near the poverty line is between 7,000,000 and 8,000,000. Things are going badly in general trade, while the position in certain miscellaneous and semi-luxury iudus tries, also the coal industry, are steadily getting worse. Tho coal output is now considerably less than it was a year ago. Tho fact that unemployment has increased in the boot and shoo, pottery, wool, textiles, and trans port industries, in conjunction with a heavy fall in railway revenue, suggests that the cumulative effect of the enormous reduction in purchasing power in the principal industrial centres is now felt.