JOB CONTROL

Grey River Argus, 29 July 1925, Page 2

JOB CONTROL

WHAT IT REALLY MEANS. During the last few years every section of the anti-Labor press has devoted columns to what it alludes to as “job control,’’ lifting it into something sinister and terrible, aimed rl the heart of industry, and the integrity of the Empire. Air Tom Walsh, general president of the Seamen’s Union, who is alleged by these organs to be "-he greatest exponent of this new phenomenon, has given his views upon the subject to the Sydney “Labor Daily,” from which we reprint, the follow! tg. According to Mr Walsh, “job control” is not something which arrived after the Russian Revolution, nor was it landed with a shipment of German gold, which those worthies conjure! up in their imaginations during the Job control is mor e than any of these things. The idea of it lies behind all workers’ organisations, and employers’ organisations, too, for that matter. It is the idea that the employer alone shall not be entitled to decide upon what conditions and upon what rates his employees shall work, but that the workers themselves shall have a say. NOT MERE MACHINES. “The press and a certain type of politician,” remarks Mr Walsh, “are raising their voices and their hands in horror at the seamen’s claim that job control has come to stay. But we are sure that if the people of this country were made aware of all ths facts they would, by a huge majority, support the seamen in their present stand.

“The most progressive capitalists have long ago conceded the position that workers are not mere machines ownd by the employers, but parties to the industrial process in which both are engaged. “Even in this present, dispute certain companies are running their ships without interruption, because their management is astute enough, to realise that one of the best possible business methods is to satisfy the staffs who work the industries, as well as the public that uses them. ALWAYS FIGHTING; “The perpetual quarrelling of some Australian shipping companies with the seamen engaged in their ships, de notes a lack of capacity in the management. which, instead of giving reasonable consideration to the claims of the men, and settling with decent expedition the disputes arising out of the work on. board the vessels, always fight every claim first, and then give in afterwards.

“Thp shipping companies have never yet given anything willingly. The men have had to fight for everything they have today. Even for the smallest concessions they have had to put up the bitterest struggles against unreasoning refusals on the part of the management, and in the face of a biassed and lying press which never loses an opportunity to place the seamen’s case in a false light before its readers.

“The seamen know, from long and bitter experience, that nothing can bo hoped for from the shipowners without it fight, and this knowledge does not help to make matters easier when, through the refusal of the owners to settle accumulated disputes, stoppages result. OWNERS’ IDEAS. “If a worker in any industry but shipping declined to offer for engagement until his grievances have been rectified, his refusal would be accepted as a matter of course. But if the seaman declines to accept an engagemeat until all the disputes which arose during the previous voyage are settled, his action is called ‘job control.’ The lying press is then sooled on to him, and the public, misled by tho deliberately concocted falsehoods, are sometimes inclined to blame the seaniad for being the bad boy of the family.

“If the seamen did not practise some sort of job control, they would very soon be down to the conditions which were in vogue in the ships 50 years ago, for the individuals who direct most of our shipping have received none of the enlightenment of modern times, and they look upon the seamen as slaves who ought to be grateful to be allowed to make profits for them. “Mr Bruce proves by his remarks to the gentlemen of the Labor deputation that met him recently that he knows little, if anything, of the methods of modern capitalism, and that he is by no means an astute, up-to-date business man, such as progressive capitalism requires, but a blunderer with the mentality of an auto erat of the middle ages, striving to cope with the industrial problems of the twentieth century. RIGHT TO STRIKE. “When society conceded the workers the right to form trade unions, it involved the right to practise job control. A trade union is nothing more or less than an agency for job control by the workers.

“That is the object and purpose of a union of workers formed for mutual protection against the employ ers and all trade unions are formed for that, very purpose. “The right of the workers to organise to secure partial or complete control of job conditions was long resisted. The Common Law of England forbade such associations until the year 1825, and men were sent in chains from England to the penal settlements for attempting to form combinations of working-class people to regulate their job conditions.

In 1825, however, the right of collective bargaining, and the right to strike, were both recognised, and all workers to-day realise this is the charter of their liberty.

“But now the Australian ship-own-ers and the Prime Minister, Mr Bruce, driven by a biassed press, which he dares not flout, would have us go back to the doys before the repeal of the

Combination Acts, making the owners of ships the sole controllers of the job, forbidding seamen to even combine Joi their own protection, ami punishing with fine, imprisonment, and deportation any attempt on their part to assert their freedom to decline to work if asked by the ‘lords of creatioia the ship-owners. ’ ’ ARBITRATION. “The Arbitration Act does not make both sides to an industrial dispute equal, nor does it hold the balance fairly between the two.

“The cold, brutal fact is that the Arbitration Act recognises the employer as the sole owner of the industry, with tho absolute right to all the profits, and secures to the workers only that they shall not be employed at less than a certain minimum wage, based on figures calculated to the penny, to allow for no more than ‘frugal comfort,’ and under conditions which may not be actively injurious. Anything beyond this is outside the scope and power of the Court, and if the workers aspire to anything better than the mere minimum of frugal comfort, they must get it putside the Court from the enijdoj'ers direct,