LABOUR TRUST TROUBLES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12267, 11 May 1903, Page 6

LABOUR TRUST TROUBLES.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, Kindly allow me to supplement remarks under the signature ' * Spectator," which appeared in your correspondence, with a reference I had intended to the reported refusal of certain Wellington trades unions to allow their secretary to grant permission to incompetent hands to engage with employers at under minimum wage rates. How are employers and the public to construe such an attitude ? Is it intended that men incompetent to earn the minimum wage shall he starved into demanding over-payment for their services, or is "unionist competency" another way of expressing " insistent effrontery" in demanding without regard to merit or equity in service rendered ? So far as appears, unions accept all offerers for membership on the understanding of loyally to minimum wages scale, no question asked or reference demanded; and the effect of non-permission of under rates for under efficients will of necessity bo to flood the labour markets with casual crowds of unioncreated nondescripts, who must (because their unions compel them) make an ignominious show of themselves —in being shunted by their employers—until such times as individual employers have found their measure. It. is clear that some healthier understanding of " minimum competency" must be found or unionism will obliterate all citizen decency.—l am, etc., Spectator.