Attempt to Remove Auckland Drivers’ Union Officials

Grey River Argus, 24 March 1949, Page 4

Attempt to Remove Auckland Drivers’ Union Officials

AUCKLAND, March 23. A special meeting of the Auckland Drivers’ Union to consider the removal of the union’s permanent officials has been requisitioned by the organising committee of the union’s “moderate” group. The same committee requisitioned last Thursday’s union meeting which decided by a large majority to lift the drivers’ boycott in support of the Carpenters’ Union. Under the union’s rules the coming meeting must be called within seven days. “As a result of the widespread de-’ mand and of the evidence last week of no-confidence in the policies advocated and supported by officers of the Drivers’ Union, a further requisition has been placed yesterday in the hands of the secretary, Mr L. G. Matthews,” said a statement issued by the committee. “With their interest and realisation of their obligation to the trade union movement reawakened, the rank and file members have a paramount desire to rehabilitate and present themselves once again as a respectable and reasonable bodv of men who will no longer be coerced, threatened, or led by the nose in support of a policy implemented by a few. . . “The drivers now fully realise the tremendous powers which they can exercise either for good "or bad in view of the fact that transport is the lifeline of industry,” This places their organisation in a unique and responsible position. A state of affairs through which they have been unwittingly compromised will no longer be tolerated.