Greymouth Evening Star. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1945. TYRANNY OF STRIKES.

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 December 1945, Page 4

Greymouth Evening Star. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1945. TYRANNY OF STRIKES.

G ONE are the days when surprise was expressed when Jack proved as good as his master. To-day, he is estimated as being the better, the desire to give the workers a fair share of the benefits from industry having been developed to the extent that power has been largely transferred to them. Industrial injustices have been removed, and “bad” employers find the going harder, a development that the nation welcomes. Rates of pay increased, fewer working hours, more holidays, and other advantages have been secured for wage-earners, and generally, their lot. is happier. Has the nation been the gainer by this new state of affairs? The answer of many people will be in the affirmative, but there must be misgivings as to whether the industrial pendulum having swung to the Left, far enough,-will go further.

Will the wage-earners misuse their new power? Events in neighbouring Australia demonstrate what happens when unions use the big stick unduly. To-day, the people in Australia have to endure domestic hardships, lost employment, transport cuts, and rationing in various directions, because of the coal shortage, brought about by the miners’ refusal to work, their usual “argument” when dispute arises. There is something grievously wrong with a system that permits any one section of the wage-earners to inflict heavy losss and trouble on most other workers, and on women and children, who had nothing to do with the dispute, and no voice in connection with it. Good will come out of evil if the present austerity thrust on the Australian people through the strike effects, compels them to take measures for self-protection against repetition of wanton mischief and caprice. The fact that the chief executive of the Australian trades unions opposed the strike suggests there was little need for the work stoppage. Is the nation to be always in danger of being held-up by robbers of their peace and prosperity? Strikes are frecpient in the Commonwealth,, and wffiethcr the strikers obtain their demands or not, it is usually agreed by the parties, if not the public, that there should be no “victimisation,” which means that those responsible for the trouble are not to be penalised in any way. Only the innocent community must pay. The day is overdue for this leniency io be abolished. If public opinion firmly demanded that those responsible for strikes should be punished, there would be fewer agitators and .fewer dupes. Something must be done to control the tremendous power for mischief now' held by trade unions, and the longer the uncongenial task is evaded, the more difficult it will become. The “heads-we-wun and tails-you-lose” attitude of strikers has become a menace to national w r elfare, a danger that will become worse if not checked early. With the arbitration and conciliation systems available, there is no necessity to strike, nowadays, to secure a fair deal. Strikes should be as obsolete as locks-ont, and there is rarely one of those, nowadays. The right to strike may have to be jettisoned if the rights of the community are not more honoured. Legislation in recent years has transformed the wdiolc industrial situation, and powrnr is now r wfith the employees and not the employers. Strikes, to-day, injure the community more than the employers, and will have to be regarded as onslaughts on national welfare, rather than as a private quarrel between employers and employed. Australia is to-day the victim of strikers’ tyranny, but it may be New Zealand’s misfortune to-morrow r .