FLAX WORKERS AND THE CONTRACT SYSTEM.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 694, 20 April 1909, Page 5

FLAX WORKERS AND THE CONTRACT SYSTEM.

THE UNION'S VIEWS. The Flax Millers' CJnion Executive thus deals with the ooutraot system in tho Jfoxton Herald Strangely enough, whilst "not wishing to out down the earnings," Mesirs Broad und Beeves offered five of onr members ooatraots (or scutching and pressing at 22s (3d per ton. That is to say tho employers quoted imagined that their scutohers jijjere only working at a three-quarter j?aoe I What lazy men wo must have in onr ranks, if by tho simple means of dooking 25 per cent off pieje work rates jou can put up ycur output by one-quarter. Upon the question of the look-out implied by the dismissal of our members' when they would not' accept the above rate we have nothing to say. It is now a matter for settlement by the Department o Labour and the Arbitration Oourt. It is an open seorot that the suggested contract system is toothing more nor loss than an organised attempt to get Ijehind the award. "PLAIN SOAB." For the men who, to avoid a trifling temporary inoonvenience (be it physioal. or financial), deliberately play false to the members of the Union they dishonour there remains nothing but. the abhoirence of all right feeling men, the contempt of the speonlathe land jobber whose second-hand tools they are in the present instanoe,' and the thirty pieces of silver whioh have been their'rightful heritage since the days of the original Isoariot. We understand that some of our members have signed Messrs Broad and Reeve's oontraots for various branohes of work in the mill, and we wish it to be clearly understood that the foregoing remarks voice tho opinion of the Union's Executive regarding' their behaviour in the matter. "