THE LABOUR MOVEMENT

Evening Star, Issue 22576, 18 February 1937, Page 16

THE LABOUR MOVEMENT

(By Trade Unionist.)

ARBITRATION COURT SITTING. To-morrow morning will see the first sitting of the Arbitration Court to take place in Dunedin for close on 10 months. Normally each centre of the Dominion has four sittings a year, but during the depression years these arrangements drifted to three and two sittings owing to the lack of work for the court to do, and Mr Justice Frazer, who was then president, was engaged on other work at intervals. Owing to the long period between the last sitting of the court and the one that is beginning at present, a considerable number of industrial disputes have to be heard, totalling in all 37 cases. There are also five set down for hearing at Invercargill. Most of the cases, however, arc substantially settled. There, are about 14 with major questions, such as hours of work and wages, to be heard, one being the Kaitangata miners and general labourers, including quarry workers, the last-named claiming holiday payments and payments for standingby time. The court, in addition to the above, has several applications to add parties to awards, and also applications for exemptions from several awards. Further, eight compensation cases are to be heard, so the court should be the best part of three weeks in the Otago •and Southland district. The writer has been informed that the work is still piling up in the other centres, and from present appearances it is going to be some time before the present court, if it is not assisted in some way. will he able to set a regular schedule for its normal visits. The long delay that is taking place in hearing some of • the disputes is creating uneasiness among some of the local trade unions, who were expecting that be "ore this the Minister ol Labour would have done something to help the present court (who are working extremely long hours on some occasions) to cope with the unprecedented rush of work.

GENEVA CONFERENCE REPORT. Tlie writer has received from Mr G. T. Thurston a very pleasing booklet containing his report and recommendations on Inst year’s Geneva Conference. The report is a bit belated, but of course “ better late than never.”

In introducing the report Mr Thurston states: “I feel that it is incumbent on me to give as fall a report as possible. It must be understood, however, that it is impossible to put into a report the many details. I have always felt (and I have that feeling confirmed) that New Zealand workers and the people of New Zealand generally, for that matter, are not as well informed of the International Labour Organisation and its work as they should be. For that reason a review of its functioning and the results accomplished since its establishment will not be out of place here, as a preliminary to my report of the agenda submitted at the session.

Its value as an organisation to the world’s workers cannot he measured with a usual form of yard stick; its ramifications are so wide and its subjects so varied, that there is no method of measuring its worth. Suffice it to say that millions of the world’s workers can thank the 1.L.0. for improvements to their conditions of employment and social uplift generally, but few arc aware of the hand that has helped them. “ Interest, or rather lack of interest, in the 1.L.0. by New Zealand, is evidenced in the fact that it lias only been represented at the conference on three occasions since its inauguration in 1915)—i.e„ 1931, 1935, 1936.” The booklet also contains some very interesting photographs of the League of Nations headquarters, and personalities of the various workers’ delegations attending the conference. A photograph that is specially interesting is one which shows the full conference in session, with several delegates using ear phones, listening in to the speeches as they are delivered, which is the system adopted by the I.L. Office to overcome the language harrier between the respective delegates. ' » • » * UNIONS REVILED. It reviled the trade unions as “ reformist ” organisations. It declared no material progress could be attained within Capitalism. Trade unionism was a pilar of the Capitalist system. It logically followed that the stronger the trade unions became, the stronger and more durable Capitalism would become. For years the tactics of tho Communists in Britain and elsewhere aimed at weakening the faith of the workers in trade unionism. They tried to show it was inadequate and ineffective. They strove to undermine the confidence of tho workers in their loaders. If the Communist method was tho right one

f it is they who would have the 2,000,000 and the Labour Party would have the 7,000. Only a lew years ago we were blackguarded for “ class collaboration ” when we tried to establish contact with the employers’ central organisations (the Federation of British Industries and tire National Confederation of Employers’ Organisations) for the purposes of collective bargaining. That sounds laughable in the light of present-day events. The Communists are now falling over themselves to collaborate with the Radicals in France, Spain, and elsewhere. Without those “ bourgeois ” parties, the 11 united front” in France and Spain would not have been'nearly so successful. Do the Communists suggest that the Labour Party should link up with the Liberals in Britain as well as with the Communists? That is what they have advocated and practised in France and Spain in their “ united front tactics. Through their many subsidiary organisations they have proved they are ready to collaborate with anyone, whatever their Capitalist origin or political colour 11103’ be. It is not many years since they were denouncing Parliament, and saying it could do nothing for the workers. Its only value was a sounding board or a platform for the workers’ representatives. Parliament was merely the ‘ * executive of the Capitalist class. Now they are very anxious to get into the executive. They have evidently learnt what, our trade unions have been preaching for years, that if the workers use their political power intelligently they can immensely improve the lot of the people, and permanently change the social and economic s3’stem. The Communists have failed to obtain any footing within the trade unions. Hence the tactics of the “united front.” . ~ From Sir Walter Citrine s diary. * # • •

WOMAN AT HOME NOW SCIENTIST .There are thousands of happy mothers and daughters in nearly every big city and town in Britain to-day —because they have the chance to become really efficient cooks and home managers, without drudgery. . Why? Science has come to their aid. •> Many of these happy women and girls are members of the Electrical Association for Women, of which Miss Caroline Haslett is the director. Miss Haslett wanted to show budding houseworkers and housewives of Britain how to be their own home engineers. So now housewives, domestic teachers, and young girls in most big towns are getting together to form domestic classes “ With the advent of electric power into the home there is uo reason why the status of domestic service as a career should not be enhanced, Miss Haslett told a ‘ Daily Herald reporter. “The Electrical Association tor Women is arranging for definite instruction on the use of the new devices in the home to be given, and for a certificate to be awarded to those passing a simple examination. \L ARM SAFETY LAMP FOR COAL MINERS. Can anyone invent a safety lamp for miners which will also give automatic alarm of the presence of gas? If am. he may win £500; the English colliery owners offer that prize for the best deSlS The official specification has been drawn up by a committee consisting or representatives of the Mining Association, the Mineworkers’ I'cdcration, the Mines Department, the National Association of Colliery Managers, the Institute of Mining Engineers, and the South Wales Institute of Engineers. The appliance must be as portable, as a miners’ handlamp, • and must conform with the Mines Department regulations in regard to safety, construction, and lighting performance. The alarm must give automatically and reliably under normal working conditions, a signal to denote the presence of firedamp through as wide a range as possible. • Other things being equal, preference will be given to an alarm capable of indicating the lowest percentage of firedamp. The alarm must operate within a reasonable time, which should not exceed two minutes. It must operate by reason of firedamp only, and must not give false signals such as may arise from the shock of blasting or changes in atmospheric conditions. Simplicity of examination and adjustment of the whole appliance is essential. Entrants mast submit drawings and detailed particulars of their appliances to the secretary. Mining Association of Great Britain, General Buildings, Aldwych, London, W.C.2, not later than June 30 next.

Actual apparatus or models must not be sent until instruction to this effect has been received.

1.000 NEW MEMBERS A WEEK. With a membership already well over the half-million mark, the Transport and General Workers’ Union is making new members at the rate of mare than 1,000 a week.

Mr Ernest Bovin, the general secretary, points out in a Christmas message in the union’s journal that by the end of September the total membership had increased to roughly 540,000, and reserve funds were rising steadily towards the £1,000,000 mark. The first nine months of this year brought a uet gain in membership of just over 50,000. Mr Bovin expresses gratification that among the new members are a good proportion of women workers, and suggests that “ the time is ripe for a big drive in the organisation of women, both in industry and in the office.” IT’S THE SAME THE WORLD OVER! Christmas shopping story from the ‘ Readers’ Digest ’ of New York (but these things happen over here, too). A wealthy woman shopper was seen giving her Peke a drink at a fountain.

“Pardon me. madam,” said a floorwalker, “ but I am afraid customers would not very much like to see your dog drinking at that fountain.” “Oh, I am sorry,” said the owner of the Peke. “ I quite thought this fountain was only used by the assistants.”