MINISTER AND UNIONS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 1 July 1939, Page 10

MINISTER AND UNIONS

MINISTER'S CLEAR WARNING There is no room for misunderstanding in the warning given by the Minister of Labour to industrial organisations which have been demonstrating against Arbitration Court decisions. Mr Webb makes it clear that he expects the law t.. be obeyed and the awards and judgments of the Court to be accepted. His elaboration of the points leaves little to be added. As he says, the Government re-enacted the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, restoring those provisions which had been repealed. It went further, as he reminds industrial labour, establishing compulsory unionism and, he might have added, extending the machinery for handling disputes at a time when a large number were offering for decision. The predecessors of the present Government were reproached with having destroyed the arbitration system, and the pledge to reinstate it was, as Mr Webb recalls, a leading campaign issue before the election of 1935. Yet nothing could be more destructive of the system than recent actions of some powerful industrial organisations. They threaten to destroy the authority of the Court. Without authority it might just as well not exist at all. The issue as put by the Minister is simple enough. These organisations must decide whether they wish to have the conciliation and arbitration system, or whether they prefer to live outside it, and resort to direct action for the settlement of disputes—with the obvious corollary that they cannot have it both ways. Apparently considering it is not sufficiently well armed to insist on observance of what the Court decrees, the Government proposes to legislate, giving itself additional powers. When it has done this, the position will be more clearly what, in effect, it is now —that defiance of the Court by direct action is a challenge to the Government and the rule of law. To that challenge any Government worthy of the name can respond in one way only, th« way Mr Webb shows this Government to be taking.