THE AUSTRALIAN STRIKE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLII, Issue 1012, 14 November 1917, Page 2

THE AUSTRALIAN STRIKE.

COLONIAL SUGAR CO.'S EXPERIENCE. IlOn* IT REACTS ON THE EMPLOYEES. Workmen employed by the Colonial Sugar Company in Melbourne and Sydney too < part in'the recent strike, with the resu.t that- a large proportion of those who strucK have- tensed to be members of the company .s provident- fund. A statement on the raatlir has been issued to shareholders by Mr K. \V. Knox, general manager of the company. Mr Knox states that although none of those who left the works in Sydney without notice, or who refused to resume duty in Melbourne, claimed to have any grit . - ance against the company, and all the members of the provident fund were given the opportunity to return to duty for a week afi ■' they struck, only a trifling percentage if these members availed themselves ol i 10 offer made. According to the rules of tiio fund, absence from work for a week, without leave, constituted resignation from the company's service, so all these mcn_ wi re deemed to have resigned, and were paid o it of the fund, and some 370 have thus lost their interest in this institution, being nearly 30 per cent of the ware-earners who u i re members. Those entitled to pensions by reason of their age will receive these; I 10 others drew all the money they had paid i'jr their weekly subscriptions. The fund was started during the gc ieral strike of 1890. The two main principles were that, the company duplicat d all the subscriptions and that the salaried officers and wage-earners became members on exactly the same tooting, and bad ; n equal share in the control. The first ;f these provisions has, year by year, involved largo payments, anil in tin- 26. hj year, just ended, the contribution of Ihc company was £9976. "There has l>ceii a gradual change for the worse in the hearing of our employoes here to the company," Mr Knox states, "and this bus been noticeably aggravated by the long-drawn-out disputes in the Arbitration Courts. Although we bad realised the altered attitude of the wage; earners, we. had not thought it possible that-, after Tt years of effort on our pari to make the conditions of their employment as good as, or better than, those in other services, they would carelessly forfeit a valuable and important interest in the business for which they worked. This interest has accrued through Ihc £ for £'subvention by the company, and its investment in the com panv's shares, of which the members now own' between 8000 and 9000. the present, market value of the holdings being £3OO, 000. From this investment the income is £21.000 a year, and if has, almost wholjy, been acquired out of the subvention by the company, the members' subscriptions being invested on deposit. "Much rs said and written nowadays about profit-sharing in industries, and it i.s it grim commentary on tho theories advanced that, ill this instance, a very large section of the wage-earners concerned—some of them of 1 lit; second generation—should, at the bidding of an outside body, forfeit their interest in the benefit above described." Mr Knox adds that it- is not proposed, even now, to stop the admission of all wage-earners to the fund, but this will bo restricted to those who have convinced the company that they can be trusted to show a regard for the interest of their employer. So far as the officers of the staff arc concerned, it should be understood that the foregoing remarks in noway apply to them. Their loyalty to the service has always been beyond question.