UNION SECRETARY ATTACKS N.Z. COMMUNIST PARTY

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 March 1948, Page 5

UNION SECRETARY ATTACKS N.Z. COMMUNIST PARTY

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, This Day. “It should be obvious to all that there is afoot a world-wide foreignsponsored movement, which has as its object the overthrow of all accepted forms of law and order and the establishment of a state of chaos throughout the democratic nations of the world.’

This statement was made this morningtby Mr G. Albright, secretary of the Auckland Electrical Workers’ Union.

‘This movement in this country is led by the New Zealand Communist Party and should be resisted and attacked by all honest and wholesome trade unionists,” he said. “Those who support it - are, in my opinion, nothing short of traitors to their country.” It had become apparent, he said, that there was a split in the industrial Labour movement and for the guidance of its officers the union had to decide whether its policy was to be in support of the Labour Government and the conciliation and arbitration system or in support of the Communist Party and the unions and organisations at present dominated by it. He had submitted a report outlining the attitude of his union executive to the carpenters’ dispute to a meeting of the union last night, which was the largest the union had ever had. The report had been endorsed by an overwhelming majority. In addition to giving Mr Albright s views on Communism, the repor. explained why he had voted against the carpenters at a Trades Council meeting. The majority vote at the council meeting was accounted for, in his opinion, by the fact that many delegates did not have a full understand- ; ing of the position*‘and the implicaI tion of the issues, and that many unions with no Communist sympathies were represented, through the apathy of the rank and file, by Communists.