THE LABOUR MOVEMENT

Evening Star, Issue 22192, 21 November 1935, Page 2

THE LABOUR MOVEMENT

(By Tkade Unionist.)

Immediately after the Supreme Court in the United States had declared the original Railroad Retirement Bill to be unconstitutional the railway brotherhoods, in co-operation with sympathetic Senators and representatives, took up the matter afresh and presented two new Bills. These two mea—ures have now been passed. One provides for the payment of annuities to railwaymen out of the Treasury. The other Bill, known as the Taxing Act, places a tax on railwaymen’s wages up to 300dol a month (being the amount in respect of which pension is payable) and a similar tax upon carriers’ pay rolls. The tax is 3J per cent, for both parties. The funds raised by the latter measure will serve to finance the pensions scheme, 'this form was chosen to avoid the scheme being challenged as unconstitutional. Tho object of the new retirement scheme is to offer more scope for advancement to younger employees. The Retirement Act goes into effect on March 1, 1936, and annuity payments begin 90 days after that date. It provides that employees can retire with annuities (1) when they reach or have reached the age of 65 regardless of the years of service; (2) when they are ol or more years old and have 30 years of service; (3) when, at any age, they have completed 30 years of service and are retired for mental or physical disability. Retirement is required at tho age of 65 unless tho employer and employee sign a written agreement extending service year by year up to but not beyond, 70. The amount of tho annuity is reckoned according to the monthly pay, subject to a maximum of SOOclol. The first 50dol of thei pay is multiplied by 0.02, tho next lOOdol or part thereof by 0.015, and from 150dol to SOOdol by 0.01; the three figures thus obtained are added am, the sum multiplied by the number ot years of service, subject to a maximum of 30, which gives the monthly annuity payment of an employee retiring at the age of 65. _ . A three-man Railroad Retirement Board is to administer the law. One of tho members is to bo recommended by the rail employees, one by the carriers, and the third is to have no connection with either. r ihe board is to have wide powers, with penalties up to a 10,000dol fine and a year's imprisonment for anyone who.'refuses to furnish required information or commits fraud. , , To provide for the possibility ot amending the scheme tho Act also provides for the appointment of a special commission, consisting of throe senators, three representatives, and three members to be appointed by the President, which is to make a thorough study of the whole Question of lailway retirement and to present a report by January 1 next. It is estimated that as a result of the new scheme 75,000 railwaymen, having passed the age of 65, will have to leave the service and make room for younger men. * * * * UNIONISM AS PART OF COUNTRY’S LIFE. A striking tribute to the trade unions, emphasising the importance of their stabilising influence, was offered by the Prime Minister in a speech at Bournemouth recently. Mr Baldwin

said: “Trade unionism, like friendly societies, is a peculiarly English growth. This country is the native soil in which such democratic institutions arc indigenous. They are an integral part of the country’s life and they are a great stabilising influence.” He asked anyone with any knowledge of industry to try to imagine what industry would ho like to-day if there wore no unions. “There would be absolute chaos, and chaos that would lead to disaster.” • • * ♦ DOMINION STOREMEN AND PACKERS. To-morrow is the date set down by the Minister of Labour_ for_ the sitting; of the Dominion Conciliation Council at Wellington to hear the dispute between the storemen and packers- employed in wholesale stores throughout New Zealand and their employers. The unions are asking for a variation of their wages from £3 12s 9d per week to £4 5s for ordinary storemen and for head storemen, in charge of two or more men, 10s per week additional. No counter-claims so far have been received from the employers, but it is anticipated that they will wish to continue with the present award. The wages now paid to storemen and packers are 15 per cent, less than they were getting at the beginning of the depression, and the men are expecting at the hearing to-morrow a substantial restoration of the reductions that were imposed upon them. THE RECENT ENGLISH ELECTIONS. Bv the time this appears in print the" complete results of the British elections will be known. However, there is sufficient information to hand to indicate that the Conservative Party, led by Mr Stanley Baldwin, is going to have a comfortable majority, with a very substantial Labour Opposition. . The issues during the election fight were purely domestic. The Labour Party had Very little more to offer the electors than the Conservatives, except Socialism in the distant future. They had supported the National Government on the question of enforcing sanctions against Italy, and were at one with the Conservatives on this issue, with the result that the question for or against sanctions was hardly debated by either of the party camps, except in a few isolated constituencies. Sir Stafford Cripps (one of the leaders of the British Socialist League) opposed sanctions, and resigned from the executive of the British Labour Party as a 'protest against the party’s decision on this question. He increased his majority, and was again returned for his old constituency. Sir Stafford seems to have made the opposition to sanctions a real live issue against his Conservative opponent. Mr George Lansbury is the surprise , packet of the elections. He has had a somewhat chequered career in the Labour Party; his latest exploit was to resign from' the leadership of the party on the eve of the elections, because of his difference with the party on the question of sanctions, and then lie is relumed for his old seat with a thumping majority. It appears to the writer that the war-fear psychology that lias been created in England by means such as the training of a considerable number of the populace to wear gas masks, prepare under-ground shelters in case of air raids.’ and the propaganda about Germany rearming, had made the English people forget their economic troubles for the time being at least. The decisive defeat of Mr Ramsay MacDonald and his son Malcolm in the

early part of the fight seemed a foregone conclusion. The return to the House of Commons of several of Labour’s old political leaders who lost their seats in the 1931 National wave will be an acquisition to the British party. Politics, indeed, will be interesting in England for the next few months. • * * * MOTOR BUS DRIVERS’ HOURS OF WORK, A dispute has been set down for hearing by a Dominion Conciliation Council at Wellington on December 11 between the New Zealand Federation of Drivers’ Unions and employers employing suburban bus and service ear drivers. In the north a lot of correspondence has appeared in the Press on the lengthy hours these men are being called upon to work'. The hours of work are partly limited by a Doniinion award that is at present in existence to 11 per day and 9G per fortnight, but this does not prevent the employer from calling upon a driver after he has completed , his 11-hour spread to work overtime. One correspondent expresses himself thus; “It is shocking that a driver should be allowed to do a shift of 11 hours at the wheel of a big motor bus. The lives of 30 or 40 people may be in his hands. A motor bus has to run to schedule whatever the weather conditions, and it must be a great strain on the drivers.” Mr Chapman, M.P. for Wellington North, brought the matter before the Government during the 'last session, and emphasised the need, for legislation to limit the hours during which motor bus drivers may Ije employed. The workers in their schedule of claims are asking for a 48-hour week to he divided into six shifts of eight hours each shift, and, further, that a man shall not be called upon to work again until at least a lapse of 10 hours. In the case of service car drivers, the schedule also provides for a 48-hour week, to be worked in 8-hour shifts. A further provision is made for “ road expenses” as follows:—“The cost of meals and accommodation required by service car drivers while away from headquarters shall be born by the employer,” Now that the matter is coming before the Conciliation Council, it will give the parties directly engaged in the industry a good opportunity to settle their differences, as .since the last award was made (about four years ago) a lot of experience has been gained. Employers have more knowledge of the time taken for a particular run, and, further, the buses and cars used now arc not so subject to breakdowns. It certainly is not compatible with safety for passengers that the man at the wheel is likely to fall asleep because of the long hours he may be called upon to work by his employer. w * * * HITLER’S GERMANY. The following is an excerpt from a recent I speech delivered by Mr Ben Tillett at a workers’ conference:— Hitler’s Germany is not the postwar German republic or even the prewar Germany, where, whatever the faults of Kaiserdom, trade unionists and Socialists were able to exist and to carry on their fight for freedom. The Hitler gangsters have murdered, robbed, and tortured tens of thousands of innocent men and women. Six million trade unionists have been robbed of their properties, funds, right of assembly, right of strike, or even protest. Any constitutional organisation is impossible; political rights ruthlessly abolished: social, legal,

economic, industrial, civil, and political representation denied. Moreover, Hitler has made no secret of his expansionist aims, immediately at the expense of the IJ.S.S.R. and her Eastern neighbours, and ultimately also in the West. We must make clear to the Nazi adventurers that any attack on Germany’s Eastern neighbours will meet with the united resistance of the U.S.S.R., Great Britain, France, and other countries.