NON-UNIONISTS SACKED FROM P.W.D.

Northern Advocate, 1 December 1936, Page 3

NON-UNIONISTS SACKED FROM P.W.D.

EIGHT MEN WHO FAILED TO

* JOIN UP

I Per Press Association. Copyright .] WELLINGTON, This Day.

Eight men—part of the complement of 200 working on the HaywardsPahautanui deviation —were dismissed by the Public Works Department yesterday for failing to join? the union. The men state they had been given insufficient time to pay the union fee of £l, and that they had agreed to pay the amount in instalments of 5/ weekly, the money to be deducted from their weekly payments. Mr A. Cook, general secretary of the New Zealand Workers’ Union, states the men were given with others the usual month to pay the fees, at the end of which time they sought and were given an extra 14 days’ grace. Ten weeks had elapsed since the men started work, and their work mates refused to work any longer with nonunionisis. A climax was reached during the week-end, when a definite undertaking was required by the men on the job that the others would become unionists. Altogether 20 men were concerned, but all but eight paid their fees and joined the union, which then had no alternative but to require the Public Works Department to dismiss the men who had not joined, which was done yesterday.

The department states that the dispute does not concern it. The men are required by the regulations to become unionists, and if the department is notified that any non-unionists are working on a job it has no alternative but to dismiss them.