TRADE UNION LEADERS NOT OPPOSED TO HOUSE OWNERSHIP

Evening Star, Issue 26135, 24 June 1947, Page 5

TRADE UNION LEADERS NOT OPPOSED TO HOUSE OWNERSHIP

SYDNEY, June 23. Union leaders to-day disagreed with the reported contention by the State president of the Buildings Workers’ Industrial Union, Mr E. W. Bulraer, that trade union leaders opposed workers owning their own homes. The president of the New South Wales Labour Council, Mr L. P. Austin, said he believed Mr Rulmer’s view would be repudiated by all sections of the union movement. He repudiated any suggestion that degrading conditions , were essential for militant trade union spirit. “ I disagree with Mr Rulmer,” said the acting secretary of the Furnishing Trades Union, Mr J. Smith. “ A worker by owning his own home has a greater sense of security. This makes him a better citizen and a better unionist.”

Cither officials pointed out that one of the biggest organisations, the Amalgamated Engineering Union, helps its members to acquire their own homes. [Trade union leaders opposed the principle of workers owning their own homes, said Mr E. W. Buhner, State president of the Building Workers’ Industrial Union, addressing the Political Science Institute’s winter forum at Woollongong. “It has been established in the trade union movement that a worker owning his own home is prepared to sacrifice the struggle for better conditions in order to hold on to his home,” said Mr Bulmer. “ His wife and family are constant reminders to him that he must continue the payments on his home. He loses _ militancy and becomes unprogressive. We feel that rented homes are the solution to the workers’ housing problems.”!