THE LABOUR MOVEMENT

Evening Star, Issue 21960, 21 February 1935, Page 14

THE LABOUR MOVEMENT

(By Trade Unionist.)! WORKERS’ COMPENSATION ANOMALIES. The writer of this column has received some enquiries apropos of _ the article which appeared in it a fortnight ao-o. An enquirer wishes to know what section of the Workers’ Compensation Act allows a worker to be denied his full compensation when loss of the partial use of his arm was proved. As I mentioned previously, this sort of case is rare, but in the case referred to the employer carried his own insurance, with the result that just ■ after the accident he was forced into liquidation. The accident occurred away from the employer’s place of business, although the man was injured in the course of his employment. If, however, he had been injured on the employer’s place of business bis claim would have stood against the creditor who held the bill of sale for most of the employer’s assets. Section 47 of the Workers’ Compensation Act, 1922, lets the employer out because he automatically becomes a man of straw. I he business was put into the hands of a receiver, who had a .bill of sale over the land. The section in the Act states that if a worker is injured in or about his employer’s premises then he has a charge and a priority over any existing mortgagee. * * * * THRESHING MILL WORKERS. Mr J. Leckie, organiser for the New Zealand Workers’ Union, was m Dunedin during the early part of the wqck on his way south on Ins annual visit to the Otago and Southland threshing mill workers. Mr Leckie reports that the threshing season is just about completed in South Canterbury and North Otago, and expresses the opinion that there will be a serious shortage of wheat. Further, the wheat, threshed on' many of the farms is somewhat shrivelled, and not up to the usual sample. , . , , ~ Mr C. Grayndler, who is also on the N.Z.W.U. staff as an organiser, is also in Southland amongst the threshing mill workers. * * » * THE LABOUR MOVEMENT IN CANADA. The writer had the pleasure of an introduction to Mr J. W. Collins, who has been in Dunedin for a few days on departmental business. He is New Zealand’s resident Trade Commissioner in Canada and America, and leaves again in a few weeks for Toronto. A talk with Mr Collins was all the more interesting because of the fact that he was connected with (he New Zealand Labour Department for many years, being #hief clerk and deputy-registrar of industrial unions, with the result that it could be depended upon that Mr Collins would be observant, especially living in a country for five years where a totally different set of labour and industrial laws is in operation. Also, Mr Collins is the son of a well 7 known Labour stalwart of Wellington, Mr Andrew Collins, who Will be remembered as the secretary of the Wellington Bakers’ Union, and made industrial history in New Zealand when he, along with ‘Tom Mann, led a bakers’ strike in 1908 - • + u 1 Tom Mann in his memoirs says that a law officer called upon Mr Collins, sen., and handed him a document. It was the official intimation that he was held liable to a fine of £IOO for having identified himself with the strike. Mr Collins, jun., therefore has had an early Labour environment, and is to be complimented on having attained such a responsible position in the confidence of his country. My first question was: Do you know Jimmy Simpson? ” (Mr Simpson visited New ’Zealand just at the close of the war, and old Labourites will remember the Dunedin Labour Movement giving him a reception in the - Strand lea Rooms, where he impressed us all with his outstanding ability and enthusiasm for the cause.) Mr Collins knows Mr Simpson very well, and reports that he ip well and hearty, and is the English leader of the Labour Movement in Canada, stationed at Toronto. He has held for several years the position of controller at the City Hall, along with four others who are also elected to manage the civic affairs of Toronto, 1 the positions being paid for. Mr Colfms stated that the Labour Movement is differently constituted in Canada than in New Zealand. For instance. the workers have not yet concentrated in any properly organised way to obtain political power. There are two Labour representatives in the Federal Parliament —viz., Mr Woodsworth. of Winnipeg, who is the lender, and another representative from Hamilton. There are two strong political parties—namely. the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party. The latter party caters for the Labour vote. Mr Collins states that the political position as far as the Labour Movement is concerned is at about the stage we were in New' Zealand in 1900-6—the Scddonian days. There is no I.C. and A. Act in operation in Canada. In some of the provinces they have what they call a minimum wage law, which applies to all shops and factories, but only to women workers. This law, at the present time, is more honoured in the breadi than in the observance, with the result that low wages aVe being paid, long 'hours worked, and sweating is rife. The subject is now under investigation by a commission set up by the Federal Parliament, and the evidence so far has startled the whole of Canada, and will probably lead to the introduction ot legislation on the lines of the N.R.A. as applied in America. Mr Collins says there exists in Canada the finest and most liberal Workers’ Compensation Act in the world. This was brought about by negotiations between, principally, manufacturing employers and workers, who agreed to submit it to Parliament for legislation, and now it has general application. In regard to industrial organisations, there are several large ones. He referred to the Railway Brotherhood, which extends to America, interlocking the whole railway system. Workers’ unions have no legal status, and have to depend on their own economic strength by the use of the strike and the boycott. He says it is no unusual sight to see shop, factory, or restaurant girls marching up and down in front of the work premises, displaying boards with notices of a strike, and asking customers to refrain from patronising the employers they are fighting. The big difficulty to effective Labour organisation is the several nationalities of workers. In Montreal there is a population of one and a-quar-ter millions, and .75 per cent, of these speak French only. Each' particular nationality has its own trade unions. In Toronto, where Mr Collins is resident. there is a population of 800.000 people, but there are considerably more English there than in Montreal. The climate in Canada is very vigorous in winter, so there is only about six months of the year that outdoor work can he done. Of course, shops and factories carry on under a general central heating system, but the outdoor workers have a bad time in the winter. Heavy snowfalls frequently

occur, and many hundreds of men arc employed clearing away the snow from the streets to keep the traffic going. Men are paid for this work from Is 8d to 2s an hour. Wages paid to skilled workers such as plasterers, plumbers, and bricklayers are from 75 cents to 1 dollar (3s to. 4s an hour). Weekly employed in the building industries receive 16 to 20 dollars (or £3 5s to £4 a week). * * * * LABOUR COUNCILLORS. Many Labourites will be perturb'ed at the remarks, of Labour Cr bilverstone in open council last week on the subject of a circular to unemployed. Even if Cr Silverstone’s Labour colleagues— Crs Jones and Munro—were guilty ot aquieseiiig in the alleged “scurrilous letter ” sent to certain jelier workers, “Trade Unionist 1 * is of the opinion—and I am sure that this opinion will be endorsed by the great majority of workers in Dunedin—that such remarks of condemnation of the committee responsible, of which the two councillors named are a component part, were uncalled for and expressed in tne wrong place. Most workers will agree that Labour representatives elected to public bodies or Parliament are expected at all times to defend the workers, but some of the workers by their actions make it extremely difficult for this policy to be always carried out- “ Trade Unionist” has made a few inquiries as to the cause of Mr Silverstone’s scathing remarks, and the facts ascertained divulge that Messrs Jones and Munro did the best thing they could under the circumstances. The facts briefly are these: —The Reserves Department of the City Council is allocated a considerable number of men from the Unemployment Board. The officers in charge of the men reported to the committee that they were having a considerable amount of trouble to get a section of these , men to make any effort at all. The matter had become serioup, with the result that they had drafted the whole of their, men into three sections, as follows:—(1) Men who could work but- refused to do so; (2) men who could not work normally owing to some war or physical disability; (3) men who worked normally and gave no trouble. This report was submitted to the Reserves Committee with a recommendation that the firstnamed be dismissed and put on sustenance payments or sent to'a camp, with the result that when the matter was being discussed Messrs Jones and Munro supporfted the suggestion that the men referred to be written to and given another chance. They never saw the letetr, and were not cognisant of its contents. It was not the decision of the committee that any returned soldier, if suffering with the slightest disability, should get a copy of the letter. If the letter was sent to such, it was entirely the fault of the council’s staff, not Messrs Jones and Munro. “ Trade Unionist ” expresses the opinion that the above facts put an entirely different complexion on the incident. As a matter of fact, they put the whole committee on side. , » ♦ * * THE CURSE OF CASUAL LABOUR. “ Tracje Unionist ” has pondered for many years over the unfortunate position of hundreds of our best workers, owing to sections of New Zealand employers demanding a reserve army of workers to meet their needs when the occasion arises. To my knowledge this problem is seldom discussed except by waterside workers, who seem to be the most affected by this pernicious custom. Let us dwell for a while on their unfortunate position and 'go to the wharves of New Zealand, and I expect the same custom prevails in other parts of the world. Here we have on the one hand an immense aggregation of casual labourers, of whom at any moment a considerable proportion are out of work, and who, as a body, are living a hand-to-mouth existence. We have, on the other hand, a number of separate employers, with daily fluctuating demands for labour, meeting these demands by taking men from the various stands. These are obviously two sides of one and the same phenomenon. The casual labourer is not a chronically unemployed man; if he never got work at all he could not last for long; ho is not an “ unemployed man,” since every now and again it pays an employer to employ him, he is not individually superflous, since he is called on occasionally, not out of charity, but to meet, a business need. In a word, the casual wharf' worker of to-day is wanted, where he is and as he is. He is part of industry, not outside of industry; he meets a demand, and cannot be abolished by the abolition or transformation, of that demand. Casual employment, with all its attendant poverty, seems to be an incident in modern industry, just as low wages, excessive hours, and insanitary working conditions were until the advent of trades unions. Whatever steps are . taken to remove the surplus workers, the need and value of decasualisation is unquestionable from any point of view. One man properly fed is better than two half-starved; since New Zealand is not over-populated there must be room for more men in it, and so the man displaced from casual labour will soon be absorbed. The casual labourer, however, is only one of the most prominent illustrations of an economic lendency. In every occupation there are, in normal times, men unemployed; and a supply of irregular labour seems to be a necessary convenience for a multitude of different employers. . Each of these employers seems to be subject to good and bad trade. Now one secures a contract, now another one reduces his staff, and the other one takes on men, and in the passage there is a constant leakage of labour and earning power. There are always men out of work, but not always the same men. There is always some employer whose men are standing idle, perhaps not even seeking work elsewhere, but waiting until he can put them on again. The casual labourer represents an industrial evil chronic in its. nature, a matter of bad employment rather than a wqnt of employment. The result is that the casual worker just receives a wage sufficient to keep- him from starving. There is here a great problem to be remedied.