N.S.W. INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES BILL.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 154, 15 June 1911, Page 11

N.S.W. INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES BILL.

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION CONDEMNED. A SOCIALIST PROTEST. The following comprehensive motion was passed by the general executive of the Socialist Labour party of Australia at its last meeting in Sydney: — “Whereas the principle of compulsory arbitration in labour disputes is opposed to economic science, constituting an unjustifiable interference with the rights of commodity sellers, and placing the working class at a disadvantage in negotiating the sale of their commodity—labour power —and whereas the various compulsory arbitration Acts enacted in this State have proved ineffective and vexatious, except in so far as they have aided the employing class and damaged the iefficiency of the workers’ organisations. And whereas the proposed legislation introduced by the alleged ‘ Labour ’ Government is deliberately designed to divide the unionists into sections unable to act together, and in the unions to divide the membership into rank and,file, liable to fines; and delegates. spokesmen, or representatives liable to gaol for the assertion of the right of combination by

withholding theij; labour power from the market, the executive of the Socialist Labour party of Australia hereby enters its emphatic protest against this reactionary and oppressive proposed legislation and demands the right of the workers as commodity sellers, equally with all other sellers of commodities, to obtain their own price by such means as they shall deem advisable, unhampered by capitalistic governmental interference. And we urge the working class to make it clear to their alleged representatives in Parliament that the organ-; ised workers will no longer submit to legislation imposing gaol and fines upon strikers. The working, classes are also urged o take note that the ‘Labour’ party are not only retaining the most objectionable penal features of the Acts, but are enacting the mon-’ strous provision, making it legal to impoverish working men and their families by garnisheeing future* wages in order to enforce strike) fines.”