LATE NEWS Breach Widens: Government And Unionists

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 August 1947, Page 7

LATE NEWS Breach Widens: Government And Unionists

(R.A.) AUCKLAND, This Day. The breach between the Government and the workers on the proposal for compulsory secret strike ballots was widened today when two major union organisations, the New Zealand Waterside Workers’ Union and the Auckland Transport Workers’ Federation, declared their official attitudes. The watersiders’ national executive condemned the proposal as unwarranted interference with the elementary rights of trade unions, said the watersiders' national president, Mi' H. Barnes, who said: “The registered rules of our union, like most other unions, provide fox' secret ballots, if members desire. It would appeal’ that the proposed legislation is ‘an extension of the Strike and Lock-out Emergency Regulations brought down as a war-time measure. “I think most people will agree that the time is overdue for the Government to declare the wax' ofT and to scrap much of the war-time legislation.” Suggestion for Parliament Mr Barnes said it had to be appreciated that the proposed legislation would not make .strikes legal once a ballot had been taken. The Strike and Lock-out Emergency Regulations would still operate. What it would u . would be to cut right aci'oss British justice and render unionists liable fox' bigger pehalties than those prescribed by the emergency regulations and would reverse the principle in our courts of the prosecution having to prove the accused guilty. Reiterating that the unions had adequate provision fox' secret ballots, Mi’ Barnes ’suggested that they could quite well be introduced in Parliament. “If party members of both sides could vote secretly, instead of putting their hands up or keeping them down as the string is pulled, we might get better legislation. Our unionists can vote with moi'e freedom than members of the House. We do not have party whips.” The Auckland Transport Workers’ Federation considers- the “proposed legislation is an insult to the integrity and intellegence of the rank and file of the trade unions and a threat to the basis of trade union democracy.” One Dissenting Note

According to a Press Association ’message from Dunedin, the only dissenting note so far in the trade union protests against the bill amending the I.C. and A. Act, has come from the manufacturing chemists, who support the principle of a-secret ballot. Its members have been advised by the executive to, take no action against the legislation. LEADING TROTTING TRAINER INJURED • (P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Leo F. Berkett, the leading trotting trainer and horseman last season, suffered a broken leg when the wheel of a sulky collapsed during .training in a paddock at Templeton this morning. He was taken to the Christchurch Public Hospital.