PREFERENCE TO UNIONISTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16566, 2 June 1914, Page 6

PREFERENCE TO UNIONISTS.

[t is innro, than four months now nilico tlio London Master Builders’ Association decided to bring the longstanding dispute concerning the employment of non-unionists to a. head, and tho lock-out declared on January L'4 still continues. It was estimated at the end of January that .30,000 men were out of work in consequence of tho trouble, and tho latest reports give the number of men locked out as 25,000, so that no real progress has been made towards a settlement, although sectional agreements have been entered into from time to time. Tho dispute, of course, has now become a very serious one, and apparently the London masters are endeavouring to promote a national lock-out with the idea of smashing tho unions once and for all. Happily such a development ;s unlikely. The provincial builders have been working for the most part without trouble, and oven in London the lock-out lias never been complete. The origin of tho dispute is indicated this morning by ono of our correspondents, who quotes tho circular issued by members of the London Master Builders’ Association to their employees, requiring them to sign an undertaking to work peacefully beside non-unionists. But the circular does not toll the whole story. Tho trouble did riot develop suddenly, but was caused, it seems, by tho persistent efforts of certain of the employers to eliminate the union element from their jobs. Tho unionists responded by making a vigorous effort to increase the membership of their organisations and, as was to be expected, feeling ran high among the hands. Within a few weeks of the commencement of the lock-out one or two of tho smaller unions of labourers went bankrupt and this fact appears to have encouraged the employers to reject offers of mediation and to respond ungraciously to all advances from the Conciliation Board. Tho fight is now concerned with tho recognition of tho men’s organisations as well as with the employment of nonunionists, and it will occur to New Zealanders at once that a trouble affecting thirty thousand men need not hare dragged on for four months if proper machinery had been in existence for dealing with industrial disputes. The points at issue, in fact, would have been settled by an Arbitration Court without the least difficulty, but as tho matter stands the building trade of London is disorganised and some thousands of would-be workers are dependent on street subscriptions to keep them and their families from starvation.