Affiliation With Labour Party: Secret Ballot Urged

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23023, 13 August 1949, Page 6

Affiliation With Labour Party: Secret Ballot Urged

(P.A.) WELLINGTON. Aug. 13. “I am quite satisfied that if the individual members of the Waterside Workers’ Union are given their democratic right in a secret ballot to oxpress their own opinion on this vital question, the result will be overwhelmingly in favour of retaining affiliation with the Labour Partv.” said Mr. A. J. McDonald. secretary of the Labour Party, last nieht. He said his attention had been drawn to the decision of the Auckland branch of the Waterside Workers' Union to recommend to their national office that the union withdraw its affiliation from the New Zealand Labour Party. He also noted that there was strong dissenting opinion to the recommendation.

“It must be obvious that this move has been inspired b.v certain individuals who have no love for the present Government and who are prepared at every opportunity to cause political embarrassment to the Labour Govern ment,” said Mr. McDonald. Interests of the Party.

“The Labour Party has in the past assiduously avoided any interference in industrial matters. However. when industrial disputes are to be used as an excuse to intimidate members of any particular union into withdrawing support from the movement, then the interests of the party and the thousands of workers it represents must lie safeguarded.”

Mr. McDonald said that, despite misleading statements to the contrary, members of the Waterside Workers’ Union, together with their fellow trade unionists throughout the Dominion, knew full well the outstanding progress which had been achieved under the Labour Government. Wages, amenities and conditions of work had progressed to a standard unknown before Labour came into power.

As the recommendation made by the Auckland branch of the union would affect every waterside worker in the country, he was confident that if the leaders of the organisation refused to grant their members the right to exercise a secret vote on such an important matter the members themselves would assert their loyalty to the party by demanding that the privilege be extended to them.