TRADE UNIONISM AND THE CA-CANNY POLICY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7395, 22 February 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

TRADE UNIONISM AND THE CA-CANNY POLICY.

The reply of the management committee of the General Federation of Trade Unions to the "Times" 1 articles on the "Crisis in British Industry" is not convincing. After a general denial that the practices specified in the articles form any part of trade unionism, the Federation proceeds: "Trades unionism seeks to promote the interests of labour by substituting collective for individual bargaining in the disposal of the labour of its members. It seeks to fix certain standard minimum conditions in regard to wages and hours, but it does not seek to beat all down to that level. As a matter of fact, it puts no embax'go upon its members who may be inclined to get beyond the minimum conditions by special skill, aptitude, or diligence. In all trade unions there are men who have risen from the ranks of manual workers and are filling responsible positions in life as architects, consulting engineers, manufacturers, and publicists. The main objects of the unions, however, is to obtain and maintain minimum conditions of employment. Trade unionism thus seeks to remove labour from the categorj- of mere material commodities, the price of which is determined bj' their relative scarcity or abundance, and to invest labour with the power to bargain on the plane of reason and

justice. . . . True, the unions oppose sweating of labour by unscrupulous employers, and resent their members being goaded- into abnormal efficiency. They will continue to do, and they claim to be thereby acting in the best interests of the community."

The statement that trades unions have prevented the introduction .of labour-saving machinery or appliances is further declared to be absolutely the reverse of truth. It would be more to the point if .the Federa-

tion dealt specifically with the facts and figures given by the "Times'* writer, who," by tne way, reminds the public that "he has not yet finished opening his case, and that< there is a good deal of what the committee call "tiresome reiteration and amplification" still to come. The slipshod way in which the "committee has prepared their reply is shown by their assertion that the rule quoted in the "Times" which forbade workmen to do double work to gain the smile of a foreman has been shown to have been dug up from the annals of a small Yorkshire society defunct for 35 years. But — as the writer of the articles points out — the rule was not quoted in the "Times" at all, but in the "Daily Mail." The trades union representatives will have to give us something better than their manifesto if they ■ wish to convince tne thinking public that the assertions of the "Times" writer are unfounded.