TRADE UNIONS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 2 September 1924, Page 9

TRADE UNIONS.

> EXTRA EDITION.

IMPORTANT CONGRESS.

*y A.BSOCII *'lol* —COPYRIGHT Received Sent. 2, 10.50 a.m. 'LONDON., Sept. 1. The Trade Union Congress has opened in the City Hall at Hull. Seven hundred delegates, representing 4,500,000 members, were present, Mr Purcell, a memher of the House of Commons, presiding. Inter-union disputes were discussed, and it was reported that in some cases the decisions of the disputes committee had been defied hv one of the parties. The president announced that the general council intended to ask for power to expel any union refusing to obey the findings of the disputes committee. * Mr Cathery, representing the Sailors and Firemen’s Union, complained that the National Union of Railwaymen were poaching from his union by enr°ljing seamen working railway boats. The president closed the discussion amidst an uproar. Mr Cook, secretary to the Miners’ Federation, received a telegram from the French miners strongly protesting against the Dawes scheme and its effect on German workers. Mr Marchbank (railwayman) said he hoped an opportunity would be given dn_discuss the Dawes report, which, he was designed to benefit international capitalism and ruin the working class movement.—Reuter. Received Sept. 2, 11.10 a.m. ‘ LONDON, Sept. 1. Mr Pollitt, boilermaker, in an impassioned speech, demanded that the trade union movement should control the policy of the Labour Government. The congress should emphatically repudiate the threat to introduce the Emergency Powers Act in trade union disputes, and they should denounce the Dawes report, which made war inevitable. Mr Robert Smiljie, on behalf of the , executive, while not denying the right of the congress to criticise the Government’s policy, defended the latter, and said the Dawes agreement was in the best interests of the workers of both Britain and Germany. A portion of the council’s report, declaring that it was not the function of the congress to enlarge upon the Labour Government’s legislation, was carried by a large majority, despite an attack by the Communist section. The congress then adjourned.—Reuter.