The Minimum Rate

Maoriland Worker, Volume 6, Issue 243, 13 October 1915, Page 8

The Minimum Rate

The minimum rate for shearing is 20s. per hundred. AYe all know that. But what we don't all appear to know is that it is the legal right of every worker to fix his owu rate of payment before starting work, so long as he does not go below the minimum. Onoo the job has started, and no rate has been specially fixed, the employer is entitled to insist on the minimum rato of p>»7inent. A.combined refusal ou the part of a group of workers to continue that job, at the minimum rate, would constitute a strike. But before the jcb has commenced workers aro quito within their rights in agreeing not to begin until they get a rate which sluts them. If they do not like the rates offering they may withdraw their labour from the market in the samo way, nnd with the-same right, i.s capital may be withdrawn.from the market. In this respect shearers, as followers of a seasonal occupation, are in ii position of peculiar advantage to themselves. Uniil shearing has actually Xegun, tin- shearing , industry does not legally exist. Hence it is quito within the right of the Exe- • cutive to fix the rate of the coming sealon. That is what the executive actually did do in 1910: Jtxccl tho rato at £1 per 100 before shearing commenced, snd the court agreed, merely cutting off 6d. per KJO to save - appearances. But action liko this, to be effective, must be agreed upon nationally, and must be backed by tho consensus of opinion of practically all tho members of tbe union. Sectional action is undesirable, and usually futile in the long run. Now the national executive of tho Shearers'-. Union has already considered this question of shearing rates for 1915, and decided to hold to the pound per hundred, as a minimum, leaving every individual free to make his own individual bargain at a higher rate if ho can do so. It may be argued that this minimum rate ought to bo and - can be increased. . Some of tho Maoris have argued that way. But if any district desires to increase the minimum rate, it is clearly the duty of that district to submit the matter first to tho [Provisional Committee of the A.P.U., fcefore publication, and second to abide fey the decision of that committee. i These surely aro the very tap-roots of •ational organisation.