ARBITRATION OR STRIKES

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13779, 18 June 1908, Page 5

A RBITRATION OR STRIKES

A PERIOD OF TRIAL.

DISSATISFIED EMPLOYERS.

ENFORCEMENT OF AWARDS

In- hie address at the annual dinner of the Chamber of Commerce last night, the President (Mr. L. J. Bagnail) referred at some length to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act. It was a very live question, lie said. Ho believed the design of the author of the' Act, the present High Commissioner, was to prevent sweating and to prevent strikes. lb- waft sure all the employers, especially the respectable employers —and he thought they represented 90 per cent, of employers vvero prepared to pay a fail- wage, and not engage in sweating: they were prepared to givo the Act a. fair trial They were under the impression until quite recently that the Act had been quite successful. " Many had declined to express an opinion on the Act until, it had passed through a period of trial of bad times. He did not know whether times were not so good, but at all events a change seemed to have come over the working of the Act. When chairman of the Conciliation Board, Mr. Bagnall wont on to say, ho had receiv-ed-a circular from America asking a series of questions about the Act, and one of the questions was. How do you expect to enforce the awards? It puzzled him to answer at- first, but. ho replied that he bo]ie.ved the law-abiding inclinations ot this community were so strong that the awards would bo obeyed and carried out. He had then two cases in mind. One was the case of.the minors of Waihi, who were awarded 7s 6d a day wages by the Court, after the Board had recommended 8s 4d, with which turn the men were not satisfied, and appealed to the Court. The men went loyally to work for the two years of the award, the "two years' hard" they called it, and the companies paid them Bs. Then a recommendation Avas made by the Board in the case of the saddlers' dispute, that the .men should be paid £2 2& pur week. The employers were not satisfied, and went to the Court, which awarded £2 Bs. The employers accepted the inevitable, and paid the" wage, and it seemed to him a fair thing to assume that that was the way the Actwas going to be carried out. He was sorry to say he had been a false prophet. Although the Act had cured sweating, it had not cured strikes, and during the past year or two there had been a succession of strikes, some of them rather important. It was quite cleat, a?- Judge Sim had said, that it would be impossible to have both strikes and arbitration. (Applause.) The Minister for Labour, and Parliament generally, were confronted with a- very important and serious difficulty. Personally, ho sympathised with the Hon. J. A. Millar in the position he was placed in, and he hoped he would be able to evolve a- satisfactory method of enforcing the awards. He (the speaker) confessed he did not know whether it was possible to do so, and if it was not possible, then the Arbitration Act, the Court, and all the other machinery would have to be wiped oft" the slate (Hear, hear ) It was a matter of very serious >«e- ; grot that there were kucli a large number of men in the Domini"!! willing to go out on strike, and that there were so many who would aid and abet them. (Applause.) While the Chamber was willing to agree with a measure that was enforced on both sides, it could not- see its wavy to support a measure that only acted in one way. (Applause.) ■ '.:" _'~.-.-": ; ' • MR MASSEY'S VIEW. Mr. W. F. Massey, Leader of the Opposition, also referred to the question of arbitration. His opinion was that, in the form the Act appeared 'on the Statute Book, compulsory arbitration had broken down. He regretted it,, for he agreed thoroughly with the principle of arbitration, but,, if it was to remain on the Statutes, it must be made more elastic and less harassing both to employers and employees. (Hear, hear.) "MUST BE FAIR TO BOTH." "The Conciliation and Arbitration Act must be an Act that plays fair to both employer and employee, or it must go off the Statute Book," declared Mr. F. K Baume, M.P. "There is no doubt that difficulties and dangers beset the Act, and its amendment, and the dangers have to be faced, and we should ail do our best to see that a workable measure is introduced that will, as the father of the Act hoped it would, do away with sweating and prevent strikes." (Applause.} "A PERFECTED SYSTEM." REFERENCE BY SIR JOSEPH WARD. r _BT TELEGRAPH.— CORRESPONDENT.] Tk Kuiti, Wednesday. In his speech here to-night the Prime Minister briefly referred to the arbitration laws, and said it- was impossible to carry on industrial legislation without .- system which would militate against strikes. In some quarters it was believed that the Arbitration and Conciliation Act had been placed on the Statute Book for the express purpose of preventing strikes. The Act not only aimed at the prevention of strikes, but at a, genera* improvement of-,working condition.-. A suggestion that the Act should be repealed would not, he felt sure, meet with general approval until the Government hud been given an opportunity to perfect it this session. He hoped the good sense of the House would be responsible lor an improved and perfected system ■being put, upon the Statute Book. bitJoseph Ward went on to refer in this connection to an employer of Auckland who had been imprisoned for not having complied with the decision of tho Court, yet the Government hi d been blamed for not, stepping in and getting the man free. The Government had also been asked to take action in regard to a recent strike. If the Government was to be awked to allow the law to be carried out for one Section of the community, then the law would be worse than useless. (Applause.) SCOPE OF THE ACT. FARMERS' UNION ALARMED. [BY TELEGRAPH.— ASSOCIATION.] Invercaruill, Wednesday. , A deputation from the Farmers' Union at Wyndham to-night asked the Hon. R. McNab whether legislation could be introduced to take agricultural labourers out of the scope of the Arbitration Act. .The union was becoming much alarmed at the ; demands the men were' making, and compliance with them would make farming impossible. . The .Minister said the Government had no intention of doing what, the deputation asked, s and he thought the farmers were becoming needlessly alarmed. The Court would certainly not make an award that .would put farming out of existence